SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTIST BIOS
Two major American sound artists met for the first time on 5. June, giving us a slice of their very different approaches to the use of voice. Lou Mallozzi performed a series of short text pieces with turntable and microphone feedback, and chatted with the audience about his interest in linguistic taxonomy, touching on issues in his work that play with the difference between information and knowledge.
Brandon LaBelle “performed” a version of his video “Cloudy,” a 40-minute piece exploring distraction and free associative memory as a way of being-in-the-world. Questions afterward revolved around his use of piano music in the piece, the nature of paying attention, and problems surrounding first-person narrative.
Die Auseinandersetzung mit akustischer Übertragung, Stimme und Sprache kennzeichnet die Kombination zweier ungewöhnlicher US-amerikanischer Künstler, die in unterschiedlichen Bereichen von Klang in der Kunst arbeiten. Im Zentrum des Nachmittags werden Lou Mallozzis Interesse an dem Material Sprache, am Dialekt und an der menschlichen Stimme sowie Brandon LaBelles Arbeiten mit Klang und Stimme als soziales Plasma stehen.
The intersections of transmission, voice, and language inform this pairing of two highly original American artists working in different realms of sound in the arts. Discussion of their work will center on Lou Mallozzi’s interest in the material of language, dialects, and the human voice, and Brandon LaBelle’s interest in sound and voice as a social plasma.
Lou Mallozzi (Chicago)
Lou Mallozzi is a sound artist, arts administrator, and educator in Chicago. His work involves phonography, site, body, actuality, and language in various combinations and collisions; working individually and collaboratively, he has performed and exhibited internationally. He is co-founder and executive director of Experimental Sound Studio, in which capacity he has curated and organized hundreds of sonic arts events for the public and opportunities for artists since 1986. He is also a core faculty member of the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has taught since 1985.
Brandon LaBelle (Berlin)
Brandon LaBelle is a Berlin based artist and writer working with sound and the specifics of location. His work explores the space between sound and sociality, using performance and on-site constructions as creative supplements to existing conditions. Through his work with Errant Bodies Press he has co-edited the anthologies “Site of Sound: Of Architecture and the Ear”, “Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language”, “Surface Tension: Problematics of Site and Radio Territories”. He initiated and curated the Beyond Music series and festivals from 1997 to 2002 at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Los Angeles, and in 2001 he organized Social Music, a radio series for Kunstradio ORF, Vienna. His work has been featured in exhibitions and festivals internationally, such as Podewil Berlin, ICC Tokyo, the Whitney Museum New York, Netherlands Media Art Institute Amsterdam, and many others. His writings appear in various books and journals, including “Experimental Sound and Radio” (MIT), “Soundspace: Architecture for Sound and Vision” (Birkhäuser), and “Re-inventing Radio” (Revolver). He is the author of “Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art” (Continuum 2006) and “Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life” (Continuum 2010). LaBelle is co-organizer of the Surface Tension project and participant within the collaborative team e+l.