Le Forme Dei Sogni Tornano A Mare - James MIX20210912 320kbps

20 James Webb DE

20 James Webb EN

This passionate piece of chamber music written in 1929 features both music and text by Olivier Messiaen.

La mort du nombre

Today is a troubling day for many in the UK. After the results of an election that was plagued and stained with lies and deception, we are now left in a very precarious position. Many friends are feeling very dispirited and lost today, as am I. So, I sat in the studio this morning and improvised live to the celebratory speech of the winning party. In response to the situation I then reversed parts of it, as well as using a recording of this very speech and buried it deep within the music, again playing backwards. It's clear to many that this political situation is not taking us forwards, but rather back to a nostalgic and challenging past. So, for this moment, use this music to relax and switch off the news.

Backwards to go Forwards

A recorded voice addresses questions to 5 litres of Nigerian crude oil. In this ongoing series, the artist literally poses a series of questions to select objects as if they were able to respond. The installation takes the form of the display of the particular object, e.g. a glass cube containing Nigerian crude oil, and an audio speaker installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object on exhibition. The audio speaker broadcasts the series of questions addressed to the object. Time is given between each question for the object to reply, and for the audience to consider their own responses to the questions and the situation.

The artwork proposes that each object is more than the sum of its parts and what it represents, and that each object would have had its own, unique set of experiences. The form of address seeks to honour the object and create a space for it to speak in its own way. The questions - and the audience’s projected answers - furthermore serve to reconsider and complicate the object, transforming the standard conditions of display, and opening up new interpretations and parallel histories and possibilities.

The artwork began in 2016 and has been realised in various locations with various objects. For this edition, the artist sourced Nigerian crude oil as the object of investigation. At some stage of the earth’s history this oil had many another forms and various other lives. Oil is, in many ways, the psyche of the planet. It has recently been brought to the earth’s surface for use in the world’s economy. The questions seek to expand on all these thoughts and ask the oil what it knows, how it has lived, and what it thinks of the world we are in today.

The questions were recorded by Brendon Daniels. Recording was done by Dave Langemann. Thanks to Hanien Conradie for sourcing the oil. Thanks to Aqua Concepts for the creation of the cube.

Note: The audio in this clip is an edited extract of a longer piece. The durations of "silence" between each question are longer in the installation.

Exhibited as part of “What fresh hell is this,” James Webb’s fifth solo show at blank projects, 19 March - 2 May 2020.

Voice: Brendon Daniels
Photo by Kyle Morland

All rights reserved. The copyright for this audio piece is reserved.
Any replication or use of content such as images, audio and texts is not permitted without James Webb’s written consent.

Gallery representation:
blank projects, Cape Town www.blankprojects.com 
Galerie Imane Farès, Paris www.imanefares.com

A Series Of Personal Questions Addressed To 5 Litres Of Nigerian Crude Oil

This is the second time I have used this microphone, the Rode NTG-8 long gun mic.  For a few years now I have been using the short gun mic the Rode NTG-3 an amazing mic.   Interesting to see how more directional it would be.  I went out to an area in the foothills of the south Wicklow mountains (Ireland)down a quiet road to visit a stubble field as it is surrounded by good hedge rows.  I was soon recording.  In one place I could hear three Yellowhammers in song, usually two.  In the last recording (The Robin - song) I was not very close to the bird, however I was very surprised how close up it sounds, even though it was about 4 to 5 meters away.  
It was a nice clear mild morning and very noisy as the north drift of air brought in traffic and tractor noise from the Woodenbridge area.  
I have to try out this mic more, however it is odd in that it seems to be not really directional, yet later when processing the recordings I am blown away at just how close up the birds sound. I still need the recording area to be quiet, however it gives a very helpful amount of rejection to sounds that are off axis. 
I put the recordings into one file, and are in the following order.  All tracks are mono.  The recorder used was the Sound Devices MixPre3.

Yellowhammer - song.
Robin - ticking calls.
Wren - ticking calls.
Wren - one song.
Robin - song.

My thanks to pixabay.com/users/TheOtherKev-9436196/  for the image of the Yellowhammer.

Rode NTG8- Experiment. 8 Aug 2020 Rostagah Wicklow Ireland

Writing Aloud is an anthology focusing on the relationship of language to sound, writing to music, and brings together a highly diverse collection of essays, interviews, meditations, visual projects, text-sound scores and audio by some of the leading individuals in the field of cultural and performance studies, experimental music and contemporary art. Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Christof Migone.

Yasunao Tone, Man'yoshu#16

Marina Abramovic, Freeing The Voice

James Webb is an artist, recognised for his site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the conceptualist traditions. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces bind Webb’s background in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering poetic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.

As Brandon LaBelle writes, “The works of James Webb circulate around a complex mixture of emotional and affective states; of longing and despair, of the ecstatic and of hopefulness, states of bodies and minds that move throughout his practice to raise questions of individuality and community, belonging and displacement, fragmentation and recuperation.” (Xenagogue, edited by Anthea Buys, published by the Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015.)

Webb has had solo exhibitions at, amongst others, the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2018); SPACES, Cleveland, USA (2018); Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2016); Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2015); CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain (2013); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2012); and mac, Birmingham, United Kingdom (2010).

Major group exhibitions include the 13th Biennial of Dakar (2018), 4th Prospect Triennial of New Orleans (2017), Documenta 14 (2017), 13th Biennial of Sharjah (2017), 12th Bienal de la Habana (2015), 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), 3rd Marrakech Biennale (2009), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2009), and the 8th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007). Other notable group shows include  those at spaces such as Wanås Konst and Historiska, Sweden; MAXXI Roma, Italy; Darat al Funun, Jordan; Théâtre Graslin, France; and the Tate Modern, London. 

Webb’s projects have been the subject of the two monographs, “. . .” (blank projects, 2020), and “Xenagogue” (Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015). 

Impressum: All rights reserved. The copyright for these audio pieces and artworks  are reserved. Any replication or use of the content such as images, audio, and texts is not permitted without James Webb’s written consent.

Gallery representation: 
Galerie Imane Farès, Paris www.imanefares.com 
blank projects, Cape Town www.blankprojects.com

A Series Of Personal Questions Addressed To 5 Litres Of Nigerian Crude Oil

theotherjameswebb

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