Where this motion goes

Fred Small

29/06/23 – 29/07/23

Sound is a reminder of life itself and the substance of the world, in all its movements, displacements, and vibrations. Where this motion goes is an investigation into the physical presence of sound and its ability to change and create new worlds. From dance floors shared with hundreds of people to the individualised experience of music in headphones, sound is a tool we return to endlessly.

In ‘Where this motion goes’ a dance track, recently released under my moniker raptAGOG, has been reworked; rhythms extracted, expanded upon, slowed down—human-esque voices emerge and resound from the digital space. Inspired by the moments of tension and euphoria of trance and techno, this piece offers a deconstructed and reimagined picture of the dance floor.

I find myself drawn to using and creating sounds that have an air of surreality in their mimicry of a real sound. Fantasy is built on reality and lived experience—so here is an opportunity to imagine something more.

Occurring over time, sound becomes an animator. In this exhibition the sound is continually animating a ‘new’ scene as the film and sound are not in sync.

While sound generally remains an unseeable phenomena, the spectrograms in this show offer a way of visualising sound as colour and light. The human tones we hear are now flickering bars of colour. In a spectrogram different colours correspond to different frequencies on the human auditory spectrum, while the brightness denotes their volume. The sounds playing in the room are captured in the metal print.

The sense of community in sound or music is what Brandon LaBelle describes as being core to the sonic landscape, in that sound is energised and fed by those listening and responding to it. (LaBelle, 18) It becomes varied and mutable as voices, singing, sounds of dancing, and ambient noise make contributions. The cold reverb of play_station carries these sounds and accentuates their size.

Poster design by Harry Wilson
Sponsored by Parrotdog