SOUNDWORKS Touring Talks: Helen Brown

This website is an archive. Please visit www.ica.art for current listings.

Helen Brown returns to the original source of inspiration for SOUNDWORKS contributors, Bruce Nauman's sound work Days. In this response she cuts up of YouTube videos captured by visitors to Days in different galleries around the world. Text overlays the videos, lifted from edited reviews of the exhibition.

"SOUNDWORKS is amongst a growing number of projects that address how galleries and artists can engage in both physical and virtual space. It seems that due to the rise of social media and the wider use of mass communication channels people have access to a range of opinions and critical analysis of any given artwork or exhibition.

As well as professional critical responses, audiences can experience an exhibition through the interpretations of other members of the public via social media channels such as YouTube and Flickr. Often art is experienced secondhand without actually visiting the work in a gallery. I’m interested in what impact this has on the reading of artworks, what is lost and what is gained through this widening of access.

SOUNDWORKS was an invitation to lots of different artists to respond to the same audio artwork, Bruce Nauman’s Days. Going back to the original source of inspiration for the SOUNDWORKS contributors, I have edited together all the YouTube videos of Days filmed by visitors to different incarnations of the work in galleries around the world. The clips are overlaid with text using words and phrases edited from reviews of the work in journals and newspapers; taken out of context they become a fractured poetic monologue that offers up an alternative narrative to the peripheral activities seen in the videos."

Helen's Touring Talk selection from SOUNDWORKS:

Helen Brown's work explores methods of presentation, reception and interpretation of artworks. Looking at aspects of communication, perception and audience engagement, recent work has explored the limitations of mass communication systems when used as platforms for dissemination and interpretation by galleries and as tools of critique by art critics and journalists.

Brown is the final blogger in this series of Touring Talks – a selection of works chosen from SOUNDWORKS by artists, curators and other cultural practitioners. Each tour offers a unique perspective on the exhibition, both in the gallery space and online.

Look out for more talks this Autumn, including Dr. Carole Reeves on Bjarne Melgaard's upcoming exhibition A House To Die In, Thursday 18 Oct 6.30pm.