B a c k   t o   t h e   T h i n g s   T h e m s e l v e s

The Briggait, Glasgow: Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012
A two person exhibition with Lesley Punton

The Things Themselves (Gallery 1)                    Morning Broadcast (Gallery 2)

FM radios and transmitters with digital soundtracks

The Things Themselves: The radios are tuned to two small FM transmitters, installed elsewhere in the gallery, that broadcast a series of softly spoken descriptions, in both male and female voices. The descriptions articulate the natural forms that are the subject of the drawings A Sort of Visual Rhythm; Symphoricarpos, also situated in Gallery 1, and Orrery; Galium aparine in Gallery 2. The soundtracks coming from the two radios are slightly out of sync with one another, so that two different voices can be heard at any one time. 

Extract from the spoken texts:


The arms branch again, this time in three, and again, ever shorter, ever thinner. These spindly lines are contrasted by the solid, fuzzy orbs that are fixed singly or in pairs at their terminal points.

It's as if, were it not to cleave and bind to itself and other things and one were able to pick each array up in it's entirety, it would form a sort of perfectly balanced, hanging sculpture or the orrery of some complex universe. But this flowing, binding perfection speaks only from this particular place and time, inseparable from the whole.

As the light fades, they seem to recede, become wraith, underexposed versions of themselves.


A Sort of Visual Rhythm; Symphoricarphos: graphite on paper (280 x 640mm approximately)

Orrery; Galium aparine: graphite on paper (280 x 640mm approximately)

Morning Broadcast: The stirrings of the March dawn chorus can be heard coming from the radio and filtering through the gallery space. The recording is being broadcast from a small FM transmitter elsewhere in the gallery. The sounds start softly, seeming to come from outside the gallery, then builds to a full chorus.

Listening in the Gap consists of a series of written descriptions detailing what could be heard during a concentrated period of listening in the gaps between broadcasts over the FM spectrum of a Robert's R25 analogue radio (88 - 108 FM) on the 25th May 2011 between 4.20 and 6.15pm.

Extract from the text:

102 - 104:

Soft hiss, like rain in trees, but at a distance. The spinning, high-pitched sound is there but less keen. The odd crackle, like dust on a record, can be heard. These sounds play around the edges of deliberately broadcast ones.

Listening in the Gap:
printed, bound text of 38 pages (300 x 300mm approximately)

Instructions for Creating a Gap - a printed text detailing the steps to be taken towards the creation of ones own gap.

Instructions for Creating a Gap: A4 printed text (available for gallery visitors to take away)
Link to PDF