The Sound of the City

Visitors to and residents of Blueprint Studios can find their ambient noise and random chit-chat as part of a wider UK-wide sonic art experiment that crowdsources sound, to create “The Fragmented Orchestra.” It’s currently on as part of the Ding-Dong exhibition at FACT in Liverpool, but visiting yesterday I was struck by how the piece is far more effective when accessed by the internet, than in situ.
It should appeal to fans of “Revolution 9” or “Jesus Blood hasn’t failed me yet” but is also reminiscent of how artists like Thomson & Craighead, who exhibited at Futuresonic in CUBE in Manchester last year, take the random outpourings of the internet and fashion something suitably abstract out of it. One of my main criticisms of blog culture is that it has fostered a return to the linear, when in the early days of the web – (for instance, Hypertext poetry) artists and writers were far more interested in its more avant garde possibilities. It’s possible, that as the tools of the web become easier to use, and as mash-ups become more complex, the linear falls away again.
There should be some interesting interactive responses to Darwin, at tonight’s opening of the “Interspecies” at the Cornerhouse, with artists responding to the Darwin anniversary in a number of different ways. And, in a sign that there’s a thirst for the non-linear, innovative Manchester-based poet Philip Davenport launches his new book next Friday at the Chinese Art Centre.