"To hear someone say that to you is a great feeling. That you have made someone aware of the joys and importance of listening. It is to the credit of the Music Department in UCC that they have a course on sound art as the vast majority of colleges don't and many students are crying out for it as was witnessed recently in a discussion called "Sound In The White Box" at The Lab in Dublin.

"For me the important thing is that what I make is art, conceptual or otherwise and anyone looking at the work in the show can judge it on their own terms. Having a knowledge of sound art makes no difference and the fact that the works are rooted in sound and conceptualism also means that they have to stand up with a visual aesthetic as well.

"I find a lot of sound art fails visually and visa versa. There are quiet a few dabblers out there who think that making sound art is easy just because they have a programme on their computer and then exhibit their first efforts but would not dream of doing the same with painting for example. Sound art has a long and serious history which artists/students working in the area should be aware of or else they risk repeating someone else as I saw a few years ago in a show in Dublin where the person was totally unaware that the work had been done almost exactly the same about twenty years previously and very well documented."

Mc Carthy himself is set to become the subject of documentation with the publication of a new book, Listen, Hear Danny Mc Carthy, which is due to be published by Alphasia Recording to coincide with this exhibition. "It will be basically a documentation of a selection of installations done over a twenty year period. When talking with David Stalling and Anthony Kelly, the publishers, they felt that it was important that this work be publicly documented and now was a good time.

"So it will be a book cover early work like 'Echo's From An Abandoned Schoolhouse', which is about Padraig Pearse's work as an educationalist and was presented in his old school St Enda's in Dublin up to '(Re)sounding Memories/Watering The Plants' done in Japan last year with several works in between. The introduction was written by David Toop and Julie Forrester is writing the text. Julie and I worked together as co editors of 'For Those Who Have Ears', a book on sound art published by Art Trail a couple of years ago and I really like her writing and her understanding of sound art. It will also have a CD documenting the works."

Listening With The Sound Turned Off begins tomorrow (Friday, July 4) at the Triskel Arts Centre.

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment