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SUSAN PHILIPSZ

Teaching Resource

www.glasgowinternational.org

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Getting Started

These teaching resources have been aimed at S2 students, though much of the content could apply to years: P7, S1, S3, S4 and S5.

Please use the cursor keys to navigate.

For Teachers

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Contents

Introduction 05About the Artist 08The Project 09Discussion 13Activities 20Art Term Glossary 33Contacts and Links 38

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SUSAN PHILIPSZ

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Introduction

Susan PhilipszLowlandsFri 16th April 2010 - Mon 3rd May 2010Clydeside Walkway at Bridge Street

For GI 2010 Susan Philipsz was commissioned by the GI festival to make an off-site audio piece entitled ‘Lowlands’.

Susan Philipsz is represented by the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

www.tanyabonakdargallery.com

Themes: site-specific, sound, nostalgia, memory, melancholy, installation, history, environment, song.

Visual art happens all year round in Glasgow but for two weeks every two years, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art puts it firmly in the spotlight. From artists’ studios through to major museums, by way of a vast range of venues new and old, the Festival is the perfect moment to get to know more about contemporary art and how and where it takes place in Glasgow. Packed with events, talks and tours as well as major world-class exhibitions some by artists living in the city and others by leading international figures, the Festival is Glasgow’s art scene at its liveliest and best.

‘The UK’s best visual art festival’ The Guardian, December 2009

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Introduction

‘Susan Philipsz ‘Lowlands’, a site-specific sound piece commissioned by the GI festival. Philipsz, a Glaswegian, has recorded herself signing several ver-sions of the 6th century Scottish lament from which her work takes its name. These are played, at 20-minute intervals, under the arches of the George V Bridge over the Clyde- the kind of place you’d expect to find unshaven men drinking lager out of cans and where, in all probability, you will. Philipsz’s la-ment is less drowned love than for a lost Scottishness; for a lyrical past and a grimy present. Which is to say that Lowlands is both sad and mildly satirical of itself, in the Glaswegian manner.’

- Independent on Sunday, 25 April 2010

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Page / 7Lowlands, 2010 Glasgow International Show at the Glasgow Bridges. Photo: Ruth Clark 2010Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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About the Artist

Susan Philipsz was born in Glasgow in 1965 and lives in Berlin. Philipsz’s audio projects refer directly or indirectly to the location of their installations. As an artist she works primarily with sound, film and space. The starting point of her works is the boundary and tension between subjective and collective memories of popular music, political songs and film experiences. Her songs and sounds include musical, literary, and historical patterns, provoking memories and feelings in the listener, who, from the personal intimacy becomes conscious of the external world. She uses song frequently to animate places, often places that are somehow off the beaten-track or over-looked. The songs she uses are suggested to her by the site. Susan Philipsz has been selected for the 2010 Turner Prize shortlist as a result of her GI commissioned ‘Lowlands’ piece.

Philipsz undertook a major commission for the Guggenheim Gallery in New York in March 2010 and for Modern Art oxford in October 2009. Previous highlights include SkulpturProjekteMünster 07, Münster, Appear to Me, Silo Monastery, Burgos, Spain, curated by Lynn Cooke and commissioned by MuseoNacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, The Quick and the Dead, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis and Revolutions- Forms That Turn, Sydney Biennale, Sydney.

Past works include: This World and Nearer Ones, Governor’s Island, produced in conjunction with Creative Time, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Out of Bounds: Susan Philipsz, ICA-Institute of Contemporary Art, London. Tales of Time and Space, Folkstone Triennial, Folkstone, Revolutions- Forms That Turn, Sydney Biennale,

Sydney, SkulpturProjekteMünster 07, Münster. Radcliffe Observatory, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, October 2009, Haunted, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, opens March 26, 2010 (group); Wexner Centre for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, opens September 16, 2009 (solo); 1989, Endeder Geschichte oderBeginnderZukunft, KunsthalleWein, Vienna; The River Cycle II, commission for KÖR, Vienna, March 2010; commission for IHME Project 2010, Pro Arte Foundation, Helsinki

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The Project

For GI 2010 Susan Philipsz was commissioned by the GI festival to make an off-site audio piece entitled ‘Lowlands’. ‘Lowlands’ is made up of three versions of the same song played through speakers on the bridges over the River Clyde. The three different versions of the song that all begin the same but gradually change, with the lyrics overlapping at times. All versions converge at the chorus.

’ I loved the song Lowlands when I first heard it. It evoked a dark and murky land beneath the sea while at the same time it made me think of the lowlands of Scotland where I’m from. There are three versions of this old Scottish ballad. Each version tells the same story of a drowned lover returning as a ghost to mourn the fact that they will never be together again.’ Susan Philipsz

This 16th century sea shanty called ‘Lowlands’ was a popular song amongst Scottish mariners who perilously sailed the seas of the world. This melancholic song was quickly adopted by sailors from all over the world. These men were at sea for many months at a time, desperately homesick and longing to see their loved ones. With challenging conditions at sea and an unsanitary environment onboard, many men lost their lives sea. The location of the artwork, under the Glasgow Bridges, is important to the impact of the work. We are required to stay in this inhospitable, neglected part of the city if we wish to hear the song in its entirety. This fear and uneasiness that many of us feel when we are in what we perceive to be threatening surroundings, adds to the impact of the song. Even though it refers back to a distant past, we can somehow feel connected to the emotion, the fear, which the men navigating those dark, dangerous seas must have felt.This 16th century sea shanty called ‘Lowlands’

was a popular song amongst Scottish mariners who perilously sailed the seas of the world. This melancholic song was quickly adopted by sailors from all over the world. These men were at sea for many months at a time, desperately homesick and longing to see their loved ones. With challenging conditions at sea and an unsanitary environment onboard, many men lost their lives sea.

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The Project

The location of the artwork, under the Glasgow Bridges, is important to the impact of the work. We are required to stay in this inhospitable, neglected part of the city if we wish to hear the song in its entirety. This fear and uneasiness that many of us feel when we are in what we perceive to be threatening surroundings, adds to the impact of the song. Even though it refers back to a distant past, we can somehow feel connected to the emotion, the fear, which the men navigating those dark, dangerous seas must have felt.

An unsuspecting passerby would surely be surprised to come across this piece of work, in our fast moving culture we often rush from place to place, barely remembering the sights and places we’ve passed along the way. While we listen, this artwork places us firmly ‘in the moment’ and plants our feet firmly on the solid ground. For the duration of that song we are connected to our environment and to the emotions that we all share.

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Page / 11Lowlands 2010 Glasgow International Show at the Glasgow Bridges. Photo: Ruth Clark 2010Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

Page / 12Follow Me, 2006 Four channel surround sound installation on DVD, Installation view 4th Berlin Biennale, BerlinImage courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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DISCUSSION

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Discussion Questions01/02/03

• Describe the qualities that define something as art, opposed to something that is not art?

How are these definitions established?

How would you define contemporary art or is indefinable?

• Can a work of art be invisible? • Does it matter if an artwork doesn’t last forever?

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Page / 15Here Comes Everybody, 2008 sound installation. Duration: 8 min 42 sec. Installation view Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. Photo: Fabian Birgfeld, PhotoTECTONICS. Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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Discussion Questions04/05/06

• Where do you think an artwork should be displayed?

Does your experience of an art work differ depending on the location it is presented in, e.g. a gallery, outdoors or in a public space?

Can the location enhance the art work?

• What is public art?

Can you give any examples of public art within your school or local area?

How does it differ from the art that is exhibited in galleries and museums?

• What is a monument and what is its function?

Can you give examples of the sorts of things that are commemorated within your local area?

What memories are not shared and what memories are not?

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Page / 17The Lost Reflection, 2007 Sound installaiton. Duration: 2.10 minutes, Installation view Münster Skulptur Projekte, Muenster, Germany 2007Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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Discussion Questions07/08

• Discuss the difference between a personal memory and a memory that we share with others?

• What role do emotion and nostalgia play in contemporary art?

Can you describe the ways in which certain works of art convey different feelings for you?

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Discussion Questions09/10

• How important is an audience to work or art, are they merely passive observers or are they needed to complete the work?

In a non-gallery environment, how do artists address or predict their audiences?

• How long do you need to spend looking at an artwork?

Do you need to spend more time with certain works than others?

Do you tend to absorb more if you spend longer observing something?

If the art work is sound or film, do you have to watch it from the beginning to the end or can you enjoy it at any point?

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ACTIVITIES

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Activity 01

Write a brief description of a personal memory and of another memory that you’d feel comfortable sharing with friends. How do these memories compare, how are they similar and what makes them different from one another? Document your thoughts within your sketchbook.

Now find keywords that describe these memories and write them down, e.g. excitement, happiness, joy, fear, sadness, isolation, embarrassment, comfort, light, dark, fragility, strength, cold. Look through some old magazines, photographs or newspapers and find key images that could describe that memory visually, e.g. would your chosen image be vibrant, bold, sunny, lively and

optimistic or would it be stark, dark and uninviting? This activity is not about trying to recreate the exact details of your memory in pictures. You are using the key words that you have identified to express visually through these found images. You are creating a mood, an emotion in picures that others will relate to and identify with. The images that you choose to illustrate these memories and keywords chosen images can be as subjective or as abstract as you please, e.g. you may choose to work only with colours, bright, energetic or with neutral subdued colours. Carefully collage the images that relate to your memory, working from your selection of old photographic images and cuttings

from the other printed sources. Make a series of small collages, A5 or A4, where you experiment and try out different variations of image making, this will allow you can compare and contrast results. Imagine your memories like they were a film, what would be the soundtrack to this film? What songs would really capture the emotion associated with that memory? Would the song be instrumental, would it have lyrics, would it be happy or sad? Would it make any difference if it was sung by a male or female or both? Discuss with your group and record your thoughts next to your collages within your sketchbook.

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Activity 02

Expand on ‘Activity 1’ by collecting a range of cuttings, of text, gathered from old newspapers and magazines. When selecting your text, play with scale, font size and colour. Select the words that would describe the key emotions subjective or emotive that were central to the memory, e.g. change, fear, doubt, love, joy, sadness.

Play around with your text to get the best look visually, e.g. are some words that are louder, larger than others? Are there some words that are smaller and quieter than others? Are there words that are bright and bold in colour? Are there words that jump around the page? Perhaps you could include a range of cut numbers from newspapers and magazines that had relevance to the memory, e.g. the date, time of day, your age. Position and paste your found text and numbers into A4 letter template or diary format. If you choose a letter format, could you post it to someone once it’s finished, a class mate or a family member perhaps, someone who you think might be able to unlock your

memory? If so, interview the person after they’ve read your letter and record what they thought about your intervention! If you decide on a diary format, perhaps you could make or find a small book, A4 or A5. To make it more diary authentic, make several entries, working across the pages incorporating your found text and numbers. Remember you are not using the text to tell a story word for word, you are using your chosen keywords to create the mood and atmosphere of that memory.

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Activity 03

Create a ‘memorial’ to commemorate an event or someone that’s important to you. In your notebook, quickly make a list of people or events that you could commemorate. Write down descriptive or emotive words that remind you of that person or event, e.g. bold, bright, sparkly, fun, nostalgia, anticipation, uncertainty, change.

What visual and sensory elements could you include within the work, e.g. sound, text, smell, texture, colour, found images and objects? Make a quick list in your notebook. Your ‘memorial’ could take many forms and doesn’t need to be conventional; it could be a small installation made up of objects, a sculpture or a remembrance box that commemorates the particular person or event. When planning your artwork, take into consideration all the visual and sensory words that you’ve written down in your notebook. Gather all the materials and objects that you want to experiment and play around with.

If you choose to create a temporary installation think carefully about how you would position it within the space, e.g. would you require some wall space, a table, a CD player and some floor space? If you chose a remembrance box, perhaps you could work with a shoebox or a matchbox. You could line its interior; cover its exterior and fill it with small objects, images, text and colour that visually describe that person or event. Document your process and final outcome with sketches or via photography. Make sure that you include written thoughts.

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Page / 24One and the Same, 2008 Three channel sound installation. Duration: 4’ 26”. Installation view 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg 2008Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

Page / 25Pathetic Fallacy, 2008 Four-channel surround sound installation. Duration: 3’ 24”. Installation view Folkestone Triennale, Folkestone, UK 2008. Photo: Martin WillsImage courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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Activity 04

In groups, select an old Scottish lament or traditional folk song, e.g. Flowers of the Forest, Auld Lang Syne, Ae Fond Kiss, My Bonnie Mary, Castles in the Air. With help from your music department or search engine print out the lyrics of your chosen song.

As a group discuss the lyrics and the language of your chosen song. Can you relate to narrative of the song in any way and do you think the song lyrics still have relevance today? Record your thoughts in your notebook. Using your chosen song, in groups, set about rewriting the verses and choruses of the song to make it fit with modern times and language. Perhaps you might choose to rewrite

it from the perspective of a certain musical genre, e.g. rap, hip-hop, pop or dance music. Once you have re-worked your lyrics type or write them up in a clear format. Make up several copies that can be distributed to the other groups. Choose a member or members from your group to read out your re-worked lyrics to the other groups. Discuss with the other groups how you went about creating this piece of work, using the original and reworked text as a reference point. Can you identify somebody or a couple of people within your group who would be prepared to be recorded singing or speaking your reworked song lyrics? Alternatively you could select people to do a verse each, boy or girl, perhaps even

in a ‘call and response’ style, between boy and girl. Using your preferred option, perhaps from the examples provided, record your re-worked song lyrics in a quiet, private space. In your groups, choose a nearby communal area, indoors or outdoors, where you could conceal and play your recording, e.g. corridor, toilets, gym hall, lunch area, playground. Interview any unsuspecting passers-by about their experience of the recording. Record your thoughts, their thoughts and observations in your notebooks.

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Page / 27Sunset Song, 2003 Solar powered sound installation. Installation view Art Pace, San Antonio, TexasImage courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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Activity 05

In groups create a discussion that discovers an emotional issue that’s important and relevant to all of you, e.g. could it be something you’re all having difficulty with, freedom, trust; or could it be that you’re all adjusting to something new, something unfamiliar.

Identify note takers to clearly write down key words and comments as you all talk. Get them to pay particular attention to repeated words, key sentences and important phrases. Note takers are not writing down the exact details of the issue, they are recording the key points and elements of the issue.

Photocopy this written information a few times, enlarging the text if you wish to make it easier to work with. Guillotine or cut up sentences, phrases and keywords and play about with the arrangement to create verses or a chorus similar the format and construction of a song or poem. Stick your cut up lines and words onto blank piece of A4 using blue-tac or small corners of tape. Don’t just do one A4 version; try several, so you have more options to work with.

Finally, once you have selected your favourite draft, type up your A4 page of text and photocopy your A4 text construction. Compare and contrast the results, select your favourite version and photocopy or print it out multiple times. Choose a communal area within your school to temporarily install these texts. Remember to think clearly about what you’re trying to communicate to the individuals that use this space and find a way to discover their responses are, through recorded or written interviews.

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Page / 29After Eno, 2004 Sound installation, Installation view Westfalischer Kunstverein, MünsterImage courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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Activity 06

As a group consider the emotive and psychological properties of songs, discussing the ways in which they can alter individual consciousness, e.g. does a song make you feel excited, elated, positive, emotional, upset, happy or inspired? Do you think a song can make its listener to reflect on their personal experiences and change their frame of mind? Give examples.

Discuss the difference between personal song choices and the communal experience of song, e.g. a love song, a traditional folk song, a national anthem. Consider and discuss the differences between shared experience and private thought in relation to song. Select a popular song that has an emotional impact on you. In your notebook record the keywords and feelings that relate to your chosen song.

Using those keywords and feelings, take a series of abstract photographs, which you feel captures the emotion of the song. Present your photographic images within your sketchbook or on a wall space. Place your images next to sections of your chosen song lyrics.

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Page / 31I See a Darkness, 2008 Sound installation, Duration: 7 min, 32 sec. Loop Installation view Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2010 Photo: Jean VongImage courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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Art Term Glossary

Matter/Materials –

Installation: Term used to describe mixed-media art works which occupy an entire room or gallery space and into which usually the spectator can enter. Some installations, however, are designed simply to be walked around and contemplated, or are so fragile that they can only be viewed from a doorway, or one end of a room.

Mackintosh:Charles Rennie Mackintosh (June 7, 1868 – December 10, 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and sculptor. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main exponent of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design.

Monochrome:Monochrome means one colour. For centuries artists used different shades of brown or black ink to create monochrome pictures on paper. The ink would simply be more or less diluted to achieve the required shades. Shades of grey oil paint were used to create monochrome paintings, a technique known as grisaille, from the French word gris meaning grey. In such work the play of light and dark enabled the artist to define formand create a picture. In the twentieth century, with the rise of abstract art many artists experimented with making monochrome painting.

Minimalism:Minimalism or Minimal art is an extreme form of abstract art that developed in the USA in the second half of the 1960s. It can be seen as extending the abstract idea that art should have its own reality and not be an imitation of some other thing. Minimal artists typically made works in very simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle. Many Minimal works explore the properties of their materials. There are strong links between Minimal and Conceptual art. Aesthetically, Minimal art offers a highly purified form of beauty. It can also be seen as representing such qualities as truth (because it does not pretend to be anything other than what it is), order, simplicity, harmony.

Media/Medium –

White cube:Refers to a certain gallery aesthetic that was introduced in the early twentieth century in response to the increasing abstraction of modern art. With an emphasis on colour and light, artists from groups like De Stijl and the Bauhaus preferred to exhibit their works against white walls in order to minimise distraction. The white walls were also thought to act as a frame, rather like the borders of a photograph. A parallel evolution in architecture and design provided the right environment for the art. The white cube was characterised by its square or oblong shape, white walls and a light source usually from the ceiling.

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Deconstruction:A form of criticism, which involves discovering, recognising and understanding the underlying - and unspoken and implicit - assumptions, ideas and frameworks of cultural forms such as works of art. First used by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s, deconstruction asserts that there is not one single intrinsic meaning to be found in a work, but rather many, and often they can be conflicting. Since Derrida’s assertions in the 1970s, the notion of deconstruction has been a dominating influence on many writers and conceptual artists.

Techniques –

Conceptual Art: This term came into use in the late 1960s to describe a wide range of types of art that no longer took the form of a conventional art object. In 1973 a pioneering record of the early years of the movement appeared in the form of a book, Six Years, by the American critic Lucy Lippard. The six years were 1966-72. The long subtitle of the book referred to so-called conceptual or information or idea art.Conceptual artists do not set out to make a painting or a sculpture and then fit their ideas to that existing form. Instead they think beyond the limits of those traditional media, and then work out their concept or idea in whatever

materials and whatever form is appropriate. They were thus giving the concept priority over the traditional media. Hence Conceptual art. From this it follows that conceptual art can be almost anything, but from the late 1960s certain prominent trends appeared such as Performance (or Action) art, Land art, and the Italian movement Arte Povera (poor art). Poor here meant using low-value materials such as twigs, cloth, fat, and all kinds of found objects and scrap. Some Conceptual art consisted simply of written statements or instructions. Many artists began to use photography, film and video. Conceptual art was initially a movement of the 1960s and 1970s but has been hugely influential since. Artists include Art & Language, Beuys, Broodthaers, Burgin, Craig-Martin, Gilbert and George, Klein, Kosuth, Latham, Long, Manzoni, Smithson.

Site Specific:Refers to a work of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location. If removed from the location it would lose all or a substantial part of its meaning. Site-specific is often used of installation works, as in site-specific installation, and Land art is site-specific almost by definition.

Materialism: Contemporary Visual Art – Term loosely used to denote art of the present day and of the relatively recent past, of an innovatory or avant-garde nature. In relation to contemporary art museums, the date of origin for the term contemporary art varies. The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, founded in 1947, champions art from that year onwards. Whereas The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York chooses the later date of 1977. In the 1980s, Tate planned a Museum of Contemporary Art in which contemporary art was defined as art of the past ten years on a rolling basis.

Visual Language –

Found Objects:A natural or man-made object (or fragment of an object) found (or sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it. Found objects may be put on a shelf and treated as works of art in themselves, as well as providing inspiration for the artist. The sculptor Henry Moore for example collected bones and flints which he seems to have treated as natural sculptures as well as sources for his own work. Found objects may also be modified by the artist and presented as art, either more or less intact as in the Dada and Surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp’s

Art Term Glossary

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readymades, or as part of an assemblage. As so often, Picasso was an originator, from 1912, when he began to incorporate newspapers and such things as matchboxes into his Cubist collages, and to make his Cubist constructions from various scavenged materials. Extensive use of found objects was made by Dada, Surrealist and Pop artists, and by later artists such as Carl Andre, Tony Cragg, Bill Woodrow, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Michael Landy among many others.

Ready Made: ‘Ready mades’ is the term used by the French artist Marcel Duchamp to describe works of art he made from manufactured objects. His earliest readymades included Bicycle Wheel of 1913, a wheel mounted on a wooden stool, and In Advance of the Broken Arm of 1915, a snow shovel inscribed with that title. In 1917 in New York, Duchamp made his most notorious readymade, Fountain, a men’s urinal signed by the artist with a false name and exhibited placed on its back. Later readymades could be more elaborate and were referred to by Duchamp as assisted readymades. The theory behind the readymade was explained in an article, anonymous but almost certainly by Duchamp himself, in the May 1917 issue of the avant-garde magazine The Blind Man run by Duchamp and two friends: ‘Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not

has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view created a new thought for that object.’ There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the ‘useful’ function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it ‘a new thought’, a new meaning. Duchamp’s readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist. Duchamp was an influential figure in Dada and Surrealism, an important influence on Pop art, environments, assemblage, installation art, Conceptual art and much art of the 1990s such as YBA. (See also Postmodernism.)

Narrative:A narrative is simply a story. Narrative art is art that tells a story. Much of Western art has been narrative, depicting stories from religion, myth and legend, history and literature (see History painting). Audiences were assumed to be familiar with the stories in question. From about the seventeenth century genre painting showed scenes and narratives of everyday life. In the Victorian age, narrative painting of everyday life subjects became hugely popular and is often considered as a category in itself (i.e. Victorian narrative painting). In modern art,

formalist ideas have resulted in narrative being frowned upon. However, coded references to political or social issues, or to events in the artist’s life are commonplace. Such works are effectively modern allegories, and generally require information from the artist to be fully understood. The most famous example of this is Picasso’s Guernica.

Op Art:A major development in the 1960s of painting that created optical effects for the spectator. These effects ranged from the subtle, to the disturbing and disorienting. Op painting used a framework of purely geometric forms as the basis for its effects and also drew on colour theory and the physiology and psychology of perception. Leading figures were Bridget Riley, Jesus Raphael Soto, and Victor Vasarely. Vasarely was one of the originators of Op art. Soto’s work often involves mobile elements and points up the close connection between Kinetic and Op art.

Multiples:Casting sculpture in bronze, and the various techniques of printmaking, have for many centuries made it possible to make multiple examples of a work of art. Each example of an edition of a print or a bronze is an authentic work of the artist, although there may be technical variations which might affect the

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value. The number produced is usually strictly limited, mainly for commercial reasons but, in the case of etchings in particular, also for technical reasons etching plates wear very rapidly, so later impressions are inferior. About 1955, the artists Jean Tinguely and Agam, wanting to make their work more widely available, put forward the idea of very large, effectively unlimited, editions of works which could be sold very cheaply. It is they who seem to have invented the term multiple for such works, which would be made by industrial processes. The first multiples were eventually produced by the Denise René Gallery in Paris in 1962, and since then large numbers of artists have created multiples.

Interdisciplinary – Sound Scape:Art about sound, using sound both as its medium and as its subject. It dates back to the early inventions of Futurist Luigi Russolo who, between 1913 and 1930, built noise machines that replicated the clatter of the industrial age and the boom of warfare, and subsequent experiments in the Dada and Surrealist movements. Marcel Duchamp’s composition Erratum Musical featured three voices singing notes pulled from a hat, a seemingly arbitrary act that had an impact on the compositions of John Cage, who in 1952 composed 4’ 33” a

musical score of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence (four minutes thirty three seconds is 273 seconds. The temperature minus 273 celsius is absolute zero). By the 1950s and 1960s visual artists and composers like were using kinetic sculptures and electronic media, overlapping live and pre-recorded sound, in order to explore the space around them. Since the introduction of digital technology sound art has undergone a radical transformation. Artists can now create visual images in response to sounds, allow the audience to control the art through pressure pads, sensors and voice activation, and in examples like Jem Finer’s ‘Longplayer’, extend a sound so that it resonates for a thousand years.

Public Art:Artwork that is in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property or whether it has been purchased with public or private money. Usually, but not always, the art has been commissioned specifically for the site in which it is situated. Monuments, memorials and civic statues and sculptures are the most established forms of public art, but public art can also be transitory, in the form of performances, dance, theatre, poetry, graffiti, posters and installations. Public art can often be used as a political tool, like the propaganda posters and statues of the Soviet Union or the murals painted by the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland. Public art can also be a form of civic protest, as in the graffiti sprayed on the side of the New York subway in the 1980s.

Art Term Glossary

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Long Gone, 2006 Sound installation. Duration: 2 min, 5 sec (with 3 minutes silence)Installation view Unknown Pleasures, Aspen Art Museum, 2008Image courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

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CONTACTS& LINKS

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Contacts & Links

Get involved! The next edition of the festival is in 2012. Stay in touch, we’d love to hear from you!

www.glasgowinternational.org

www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/events/learn

www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/about/view/Goodbye_to_the_2010_Festival/

ContactLesley Hepburn - Creative Learning and Education Officerlesley@glasgowinternational.org

GI Office+44 (0)141 276 8382

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