Speakers

Kerry John Andrews
Speakers (1998) sound installation

Speakers (1998) sound installation, collage overview above, details below © K J Andrews 1998
Speakers sound installation was created for the Mid Pennine Gallery, Lancashire, England as part of the
NWAB Art Science and Technology projects in 1998.

The installation turned the gallery space into a form of measuring device that aimed to foreground the medium of waves (electromagnetic and sound). The gallery was laid out with ‘fields’ of loudspeakers, aerials, resonating instruments and images acting as receivers and transmitters. The layout of the objects in the gallery took the form of a network – a device for locating and orienting oneself in an amorphous, fluid ‘landscape’ of sound and the electro-magnetic wave spectra.

The gallery was divided into three horizontal fields: the ceiling grid being the ‘anchor’ pattern and the domain of the aerial/recievers. Just above head height a layer of 24 loudspeakers bisected the space. These speakers formed a grid that related specifically to the sounds they relayed.

Below the speakers a field of drums dominated the floor area of the gallery. The drum is essentially a resonating space, and became a metaphor for the gallery.