Dec 102011
 

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Two sound walks with a twist

In A Day’s Work are two sound walks with a twist – the twist being that no actual walk takes place (although it does take you out and about), and sound is complemented by a visual component.

What began as a comment on the artist’s personal experience of London as a place in time, has since mutated into a comment of a particular social, post credit crunch climate.

In A Day’s Work consists of two complimentary mobile phone aided excursions to London locations, exploring two seemingly opposite environments. It is an experience that arises at the intersection between sight and sound, the virtual and the real, and invites you to linger and ponder…

How it works:

1. TO ACCESS:

– the easiest way to access the pieces with your mobile phone is via YouTube:

– you can also download  them to your mobile phone:

2. WHAT TO DO NEXT:

– for In a day’s work 1 take a conveyance of your choice to one of the following places:

  • The London Stock Exchange (if they let you in… ) at 10 Paternoster Square, London, Greater London EC4M 7LS.
  • The RBS foyer, diagonally from Liverpool Street station at 250 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4AA
  • In nice weather find a bench around Broadgate (Liverpool Street station) or outside the Loyds Building at 1 Lime St, City of London, London, Greater London EC3M 7DQ (one of my favoured examples of 80s brutalist architecture…)
  • In and around Canary Wharf at Poplar, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E14, is also a suitable location, particularly at lunch time.

–  for In a day’s work 2 also take a conveyance of your choice to one of the following places:

  • Brixton market in Electric Avenue, London, Brixton SW9 8JX, will work well, both in good and bad weather.
  • Deptford market in 200 Deptford High Street, London SE8 3PR, is a good location, especially on Wednesday or Saturday early mornings, where you can find everything from Chinese plastic socks to rusty old tools.
  • A greasy spoon of your choice is also a good place, you could do worse than trying the Phoenix Cafe  in 441 Coldharbour Lane London SW9 8LN.

– once in place, watch the piece, whilst listening to your surroundings. Yes, life happens in strange places!

– If you feel so inclined, please let me know how it worked for you: [converse at iris garrelfs com]

All in a day's work 2

 

The more detailed story:

In a day’s work  consists of two complementary situated experiences, an exploration of perceived opposites: seeing and hearing, virtual or recorded experience and actual experience, notions of the global financial world and grassroots business. It was inspired partially by London’s history and the city’s continuing gentrification, but also continuing shenanigans in the banking industry and the distinct feeling that somehow, somewhere different measuring rods are being used.

The project began with the notion of tracing a section London life as it becomes the past, changed through gentrification into a more unified existence. It aimed to set up the old through photography, presented on a digital device, against the new through sound, as experienced in real time at a specific location. Looked at in this way, In A Day’s Work conveys separate strands of information or meaning, through different sense organs, or channels, linking the visual sense with the audio perceptions by linking concepts.

In A Day’s Work has since mutated further, and surprisingly for me, has shifted into a somewhat political domain. Most likely influenced by the ever debated financial crisis the photographic content now depicts images of businesses at the very bottom end of the scale. A companion piece also emerged, sited at the other end of the business scale, the global banking industry.

Images have been combined into two slideshows/films to be viewed in a specific location that, In A Day’s Work 1, suggests business at the top end of the scale, for example within the Broadgate Estate in East London and its opposite for In A Day’s Work 2, for example Deptford market or a “greasy spoon”.

This, then, also set up a conversation between the virtual through the process of downloading and viewing on a mobile phone, with the real, or a specific piece of real estate, and thus creating an overall real or authentic experience within the person, blurring the strict dividing lines between such designations. This juxtaposition of the virtual, the recorded and the real could also be seen as a cross-juxtaposition of old and new, past and present, rich and poor, where new technology meets old London and old fashioned real life meats modern society.

In A Day’s Work also takes the idea of a soundwalk, and mutates this into an audio-visual walk that explores two seemingly opposite environments by considering how they might relate and influence each other. This approach seemed to offer exciting opportunities to explore how differences might lead to the integration of opposites into one experience.

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