FOAM

One off 12” vinyl commission for Mat Jenner’s FOAM project.

For FOAM I chose specifically to respond to the physical aspects of the record. For side A I modified a turn-table to feedback the sounds picked up by the stylus, back into the record itself via a physically vibrating audio transducer. Manipulating the record playback and controlling the feedback system became a performative exercise exploring the record as an object.

For side B I worked with micro-tonal composition and various stereo panning effects to project frequencies into space. These frequencies activate the listening space and implicate the listener, though their position and/or movements, within the the sound generating process. The sonic processes explored, such as heavily panning sub-bass, are notoriously difficult to effectively cut into vinyl. As such this was an intentional problematisation of the vinyl record by directly inviting the possibility of the failure of the medium to effectively reproduce the material.

FOAM is a peripatetic and ongoing artwork by artist Mat Jenner conceived as an enquiry into the contemporary condition of the art object and its relationship to spectatorship, dissemination and display. At the heart of FOAM is an archive of commissioned, 12” dub plate records, made and exhibited within strict conceptual parameters.

‘Records are unique and not duplicated. They can only be listened to in situ within a physical location and are not broadcasted or digitally disseminated’

Selected artists are asked to respond to these parameters in the form of a one-off record for insertion into the growing collective body of the archive.

FOAM’s attempt at ‘resistant distribution’ aims to privilege the material qualities of each record and confers the status of art object to a media form that is, by its nature, dispersed and mass produced. the effect is to ground commissioned art works to a specific time and place, generating an insistence on a direct, physical relationship between audiences and recorded artworks.

FOAM’s format is blurred and it’s authorship indistinct. A formal reading of FOAM’s artistic proposition can simultaneously occupy different positions - encompassing expansive artwork, contemporary archive, group exhibition, curatorial frame, installation, commissioning platform, performative stage and social space. For its presentation at the attic, an additional artistic protagonist has been introduced with the aim of further blurring foam’s form and it’s multitude of authorship positions. Artist Calvin Sangster has been commissioned to design and build a new installation and structure that responds to jenner’s formal, aesthetic and conceptual brief. Sangster’s contribution sets out to provide a future structural direction for the archive and its continued evolution as it tours, and expands in size.

As part of this expansion the attic has invited artists Alice Gale–Feeny, Jenna Finch, Sebastian Jefford, Finbar and Dexter Prior, Simon Raven and Murray Royston-Ward to make new works for inclusion in the archive. These works form the basis of the next 100 artists and mark the next step in the archives development as a collective object.

During the presentation of FOAM, the ATTIC has commissioned performances by Larry Achiampong, David Blandy and Marie d’Elbee to use the space built by Sangster. Further events will be scheduled throughout the duration of the show. To mark FOAM at the attic a special limited edition 7” record by Seb Patane will be launched and available for purchase here.

http://onethoresbystreet.org/portfolio/158/