I received an interesting comment
left by “anonymous” in response to my blog post about Ben Gwilliam's molto semplice e cantabile
“A number of artists have
made records out of ice. A more interesting and
resolved
conceptual idea being Katie Paterson”.
Until this I was unfamiliar with Katie Paterson and I am grateful
to the commenter for drawing my attention to her; she has some really
interesting work including a piece called Langjökull, Snæfellsjökull,
Solheimajökull which according to her website is made up of sound recordings
from three glaciers in Iceland, pressed into three records, cast, and frozen
with the meltwater from each of these glaciers, and played on three turntables
until they completely melt. The records were played once and now exist as three
digital films. The turntables begin playing together, and for the first ten
minutes as the needles trace their way around, the sounds from each glacier
merge in and out with the sounds the ice itself creates. The needle catches on
the last loop, and the records play for nearly two hours, until completely
melted.
A
comparison between Gwilliam and Paterson feels very much like some of the
comparisons in the Text Festival between
the work of one language artist and another, who seem to be engaged in very
similar enquiries but coming from very different traditions/artforms. Gwilliam’s
work is located in a sound art tradition while Paterson is a conceptual artist engaged primarily in
questions of knowledge and science. I see these artists as doing something
different and valid with ice.
Although I
wouldn’t make this point with any serious intent, but one could argue that
Gwilliam’s is more resolved than Paterson’s because the latter’s final resolution
is in digital films of the discs melting, whereas the former’s return to the
vinyl form from which the sound originated.
However that is
spurious because the works are doing something different. Paterson’s is a pure commentary
on glacial melting and climate change so its resolution in terms of water
resides in the one-way process of its melting, completed in digital
documentation – I appreciate it but I
find its resolution linear. Gwilliam includes the process and the performative: molto semplice e cantabile was performed twice which immediately places it in a
different (music) space; water is added in the form of spray onto the discs,
the 'music' was edited, the artist was hands on, active in the creation of sound
and melting. I find Gwilliam’s more interesting and more complex - paradoxical
since its title translates as: “very
simple and lyrical” - precisely because it is circular, replicating in its
structure the physics of the anomalous expansion of water which creates,
destroys and metaphorically creates it.