ALMOST ALWAYS EVERYWHERE APPARENT
(II) 2007/11
2 channel video, 5 channel audio, duration: looped 37min sequence
‘For Almost Always Everywhere Apparent (II), we have selected elements of our earlier work and embedded them in the reverberant stairwell at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. A phantasmagoria of human voices travels throughout the stairwell, suggesting an upper heavenly space as much as the lower confines of a prison. We hear cultured, singing voices that at times are heavily codified, but they also exhibit a kind of unfettered voice-play that delights in making sound rather than making speech. From below, we hear raw singular outbursts of straining and physical effort. The original artwork was the 2007 Helen Macpherson Smith Commission at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne.
We have an abiding fascination and belief that certain architectural forms have the capacity to act on us in ineffable ways, stimulating our senses and changing the nature of our behaviour as individuals. These architectural forms (the cave, the tunnel, the temple, the hut, the stairwell, the turret, amongst others) are effective in that they have the capacity to make certain spiritual and secular “fictions” manifest.
The project is partly inspired by Jeremy Bentham's “panopticon” prison design which philosopher Michel Foucault refers to as a “laboratory of power...without any physical instrument other than architecture and geometry, it acts directly on individuals.”’ Leber / Chesworth
Collaborating since 1996, Melbourne based sound, video and installation artists, Sonia Leber and David Chesworth, have created a diverse body of work using the human voice as their principal medium. A particular focus is the creation of sonic event spaces in the public domain. Collaborations include a Commonwealth Games public art commission, Melbourne 2006, the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2004; Canberra's City Walk 2001; Sydney Olympic Park Public Art Program 2000; Tasmania’s Port Arthur Prison and Sydney’s Botany Bay National Park as well as projects in Wales and Slovenia.