Imogen Stidworthy
19 Jan - 16 Feb 2013
© Imogen Stidworthy
Barrabackslarrabang (still), 2009
HD 1920x1080 video, stereo, Engl./Backslang sp., 9'13"
Barrabackslarrabang (still), 2009
HD 1920x1080 video, stereo, Engl./Backslang sp., 9'13"
IMOGEN STIDWORTHY
Sacha
19 January - 16 February 2013
Imogen Stidworthy (1963, London) is interested in language and the voice, which she works with as physical and spatial material in her installations, sound works and films. Her work reflects on how we are positioned and how we locate ourselves physically and culturally, through the voice. For her second exhibition at AKINCI, Imogen Stidworthy presents the installation Sacha.
Her new book (.), published by Matt's Gallery London and Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, and designed by Jack Henrie Fisher, will be launched during the opening of the exhibition.
Sacha reconfigures elements from Stidworthy’s larger installation, (.) (2011). The sign ‘(.)’ is used by transcribers to indicate a short pause in speech; in Sacha we focus on the figure of Sacha van Loo, whose job of listening to and transcribing wiretap recordings places the voice within the legal framework of auditory surveillance. Having been blind since birth, for him the world is understood mainly through sound; fluent in seven languages, he recognises many different accents and dialects. The intensity with which he listens connects him to others with unusual sensitivity; in his job as a wiretap analyst for Antwerp Police, these powers are part of the bureaucratic process of determining guilt or innocence. He reads into the voice, seeking out its hidden codes and intentions and identifying suspects, blurring the borders between private and public space.
In the installation we hear the text-to-speech voice of Sacha’s computer as he searches through his files and catch the murmur of deciphered words as he struggles with a voice recording, apparently in Russian. A splinter of fiction enters the scenario: in Solzhenitsin’s novel ‘In the First Circle’, a group of imprisoned Soviet scientists and linguists are commanded by Stalin to develop two machines, a voice scrambler to protect Stalin’s personal telephone line, designed to turn sense into nonsense, and a voice-printing machine which will enable the KGB to identify people through wiretap recordings of their voices..
In 3D laser scan sequences we see glimpses of a back-alley and city trees. The technology behind these images is based on sonar and a principle closer to hearing than to vision, in effect creating less an optical representation, than an infinitely precise mapping of the terrain.
An ongoing preoccupation in Stidworthy's work is with the borders of language. She asks how we experience and conceive of a space where words are unstable, run out, or fail. What other forms of understanding emerge in the face of unreadability, in context, for example, of neurological or emotional conditions, linguistic or cultural differences?
Stidworthy's work has been exhibited in major exhibitions such as Busan Biennial (2012), October Salon (2011), Liverpool Biennial (2010), Documenta 12 (Kassel, DE), 2007), and solo shows at Matts Gallery London; (2011, 2006, 2003), The Arnolfini, Bristol, AKINCI, Amsterdam and Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck (2010-11). Stidworthy has curated two exhibitions addressing the borders of language through art works by many artists, which were shown alongside her own work and other materials such as musical notation and censored books: In the First Circle, in collaboration with Paul Domela, at Fundació Antoni Tapiès, Barcelona (2011-12), and Die Lucky Bush at MuKHA, Antwerp (2008). She has been shortlisted for several awards including the Jarman Award 2011, Becks Futures 2004 and The Northern Art Prize 2008; in 2008 she won the Liverpool Art Prize and in 1996, the Dutch Prix de Rome for Film and Video. Her work is in public and private collections, among others Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, MuKHA, Antwerp and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.. Stidworthy is represented by Matts Gallery, London and AKINCI Amsterdam.
CREDITS: With Sacha van Loo
Camera, sound / video editiong: Imogen Stidworthy
Laser scanning SEP Engineering, UK
Sacha
19 January - 16 February 2013
Imogen Stidworthy (1963, London) is interested in language and the voice, which she works with as physical and spatial material in her installations, sound works and films. Her work reflects on how we are positioned and how we locate ourselves physically and culturally, through the voice. For her second exhibition at AKINCI, Imogen Stidworthy presents the installation Sacha.
Her new book (.), published by Matt's Gallery London and Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, and designed by Jack Henrie Fisher, will be launched during the opening of the exhibition.
Sacha reconfigures elements from Stidworthy’s larger installation, (.) (2011). The sign ‘(.)’ is used by transcribers to indicate a short pause in speech; in Sacha we focus on the figure of Sacha van Loo, whose job of listening to and transcribing wiretap recordings places the voice within the legal framework of auditory surveillance. Having been blind since birth, for him the world is understood mainly through sound; fluent in seven languages, he recognises many different accents and dialects. The intensity with which he listens connects him to others with unusual sensitivity; in his job as a wiretap analyst for Antwerp Police, these powers are part of the bureaucratic process of determining guilt or innocence. He reads into the voice, seeking out its hidden codes and intentions and identifying suspects, blurring the borders between private and public space.
In the installation we hear the text-to-speech voice of Sacha’s computer as he searches through his files and catch the murmur of deciphered words as he struggles with a voice recording, apparently in Russian. A splinter of fiction enters the scenario: in Solzhenitsin’s novel ‘In the First Circle’, a group of imprisoned Soviet scientists and linguists are commanded by Stalin to develop two machines, a voice scrambler to protect Stalin’s personal telephone line, designed to turn sense into nonsense, and a voice-printing machine which will enable the KGB to identify people through wiretap recordings of their voices..
In 3D laser scan sequences we see glimpses of a back-alley and city trees. The technology behind these images is based on sonar and a principle closer to hearing than to vision, in effect creating less an optical representation, than an infinitely precise mapping of the terrain.
An ongoing preoccupation in Stidworthy's work is with the borders of language. She asks how we experience and conceive of a space where words are unstable, run out, or fail. What other forms of understanding emerge in the face of unreadability, in context, for example, of neurological or emotional conditions, linguistic or cultural differences?
Stidworthy's work has been exhibited in major exhibitions such as Busan Biennial (2012), October Salon (2011), Liverpool Biennial (2010), Documenta 12 (Kassel, DE), 2007), and solo shows at Matts Gallery London; (2011, 2006, 2003), The Arnolfini, Bristol, AKINCI, Amsterdam and Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck (2010-11). Stidworthy has curated two exhibitions addressing the borders of language through art works by many artists, which were shown alongside her own work and other materials such as musical notation and censored books: In the First Circle, in collaboration with Paul Domela, at Fundació Antoni Tapiès, Barcelona (2011-12), and Die Lucky Bush at MuKHA, Antwerp (2008). She has been shortlisted for several awards including the Jarman Award 2011, Becks Futures 2004 and The Northern Art Prize 2008; in 2008 she won the Liverpool Art Prize and in 1996, the Dutch Prix de Rome for Film and Video. Her work is in public and private collections, among others Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, MuKHA, Antwerp and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.. Stidworthy is represented by Matts Gallery, London and AKINCI Amsterdam.
CREDITS: With Sacha van Loo
Camera, sound / video editiong: Imogen Stidworthy
Laser scanning SEP Engineering, UK