- Venue
- Alt.Gallery
- Location
- North East England
In hindsight I was glad for the talk – a comfortable auditorium where Watson’s head was outlined in light and the black velvety curtains and night-sea coloured chairs rested our eyes: we listened to birds in treetops on a day that sounded sunny and a tigress telling a tiger to sod off. Then we heard how Watson had sat on an island like sitting on a rock in the middle of the Pacific taping ‘extreme focus’ sounds with his hydrophones: thousands of pistol shrimps popping sparks and the orcas long winded squeaky booms, seaweed and all that water…swooshing and lapping….now at the exhibition – a three meter cubed room painted with a wash of dark grey, an ultra-violet lit ceiling, a pouffe like a rock in the middle of the floor and in each corner a shelf holding a charcoal coloured speaker…the sound of the Pacific ocean three meters below it’s surface – instinctively we know it – our beginnings in uteri or as a tiger fears fire…the sound of drowning….becomes a concerto of ocean, electrified dots and fat brushstrokes twisted and pointed at the end against the curtains of the sea opening and closing.
This small and intense exhibition offered a wonderful opportunity to experience just sound for a while – it sensitized my ears to my surroundings for a few hours after so the loud whooping squeals of a pack of young boys in the bus station that night was as curious as the sound of drowning and the arrows of the orcas calls.
