Echoes and reverberations

Annoying exhibition at the Hayward Gallery looking at how sound has been used by six contemporary artists and how it can “conjure and challenge cultural memory”.

OK having been to a few shows that use sound in the work I need to get something off my chest! If you have a show with sound in it each piece needs to be heard alone. Either deliver the sound via headphones if space is an issue or if you have room use proper sound proofing or maybe play each piece one at a time! In this case one piece in the first room by Magdi Mostafa called “Wisdom Tower” had 84 speakers in a panel and was very loud so the sound dominated all the other works. I am sure that was part of the desired effect but if felt like aural bullying.

Also to be honest I really don’t want to have to give lots of time in a gallery to listening (or watching) long pieces. I want an art work to act like a painting in that you can take a quick look and draw some conclusions or you can choose to spend more time with and get more from it. The work itself doesn’t dictate how long that will be.

I did quite like “Space, Breath, Time” by Joe Namy which was a composition for unconventional instruments such as construction tools and Samah Hijdwi’s photo collage of pictures of Palestine so show it as a lost Paradise but both were mugged by the sound from the first room.

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