Sonic Pass, The Metropolitan Complex, 2008
A limited edition CD made on the occasion of Underground curated by Dennis McNulty and Peter Maybury at Road Records, Dublin for the Darklight Festival (27 June - 6 July 2008).
Angela Bulloch, Heri Dono, Max Eastley, Brian Eno, Stephan Von Heune, Ryoji Ikeda, Philip Jeck, Christina Kubisch, Thomas Köner, Chico MacMurtrie, Christian Marclay, Katarina Matiasek, Russell Mills, Mariko Mori, John Oswald, Lee Ranaldo, Scanner, Paul Schutze, and Ian Walton
This CD is Paper No. 14 in a series published by The Metropolitan Complex.
First edition of 10 printed in Dublin 2008. Running time: 14’48”
The fourth dimension?! Einstein? Or mysticism? Or a joke? It’s time to stop being frightened of this new knowledge of a fourth dimension.
-Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form, 1929
It was around early May 2000. Gerard and I were in London together for the first time. We stayed at Anna Hill’s place in Seven Sisters while she was in Dublin. Anna gave us her keys and Paul O’Neill gave us the name of his favorite Indian place. I had just bought my first video camera, a Panasonic PV-DV700 NTSC Camcorder.
One of our stops was Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound curated by David Toop at the Hayward. The architecture of the Hayward Gallery is typically brutalist, raw concrete slabs built in tiers, with expansive interiors. As I walked through the exhibition I kept the camera on in my bag. This led to a recording that is part bootleg, part original composition. With large exhibitions like this one, I usually make several passes - once quickly to get a sense of the scope, then a second pass paced through the curatorial layout, and a third pass to return to individual works. It sometimes takes a while.
This CD contains a fourth pass. Starting on the ground floor, I walked slowly through the exhibition without pausing. It is difficult to distinguish individual works without the catalogue at hand. I recognize Christian Marclay’s Guitar Drag around the 4’30” mark. At 13’18” I ask the docent for headphones before stepping out onto the rooftop to listen to Christina Kubisch’s Oasis 2000: Music for a Concrete Jungle. I then pass through the museum again, ending up outside the gallery near the South Bank overpass where the exhibition concluded. The total running time of the pass is 14 minutes and 48 seconds. The track ends with the din of traffic noise and the sound of the camera clicking OFF.
Sergei Eisenstiein’s concept of a filmic fourth dimension, describes “overtonal conflicts, foreseen but unwritten in the score...” In a sonic pass, I move, sounds overlap, I move, I pass, through parents and children, through voices and footsteps, up concrete stairs, through rustling gravel darkened space, rotating neon and vinyl blinks at funny abstract photo sensitive walls. I see, I hear, I move through a fourth dimension. Concrete stares. Outside again, into the open air, through a man whistling as he passes through me passing through his whistle.
(Sarah Pierce, "Notes on the Sonic Pass", liner notes, limited edition CD, Paper No. 14, The Metropolitan Complex:Dublin 2008.)