Luke Fowler’s ‘The Pitches’ (2020) is the first of two sound portraits by the artist that explore two contrasting acoustic environments in Glasgow’s urban geography. The sites chosen – North Kelvin Meadow / The Children’s Wood and the city’s commercial centre – document in different ways how lockdown has altered the sonic and psychological experience of the city’s inhabitants.

Recorded at different times of day and night using both handheld and unattended microphones, the resulting edited field recordings are composed of months of regular recording trips that witness subtle environmental changes, varied presences and the evolving rhythms of these spaces.

North Kelvin Meadows is a former gravel football pitch adjacent to the house where Fowler grew up. After the pitch was officially closed, the site lay dormant until it was reclaimed by the local community, who saved the space from development. It remains one of the few ‘wild’, community-managed areas in the city. Fowler’s mother – a retired sociologist whose voice is heard reading and in conversation – continues to live in the family home. The work moves between the private space of her garden and the public site of the meadows.

Travelling across this sonic terrain, ‘The Pitches’ notes the particularities of the location which sits in a natural basin below busy road, surrounding tenements and a former school. This unusual aural environment – which combines large open fields with smaller wooded spaces – creates a complex auditory landscape where spatial information is imprinted on the everyday sounds that occur here.

‘The Pitches’ could be described as a work of ‘audio verité’, capturing transient patterns of exchange, fragments of conversation, bodies moving through space, shifts in weather as well as cat fights, fox cries, birdsong and the drone of encircling helicopters are all witnessed by Fowler’s microphones. The recordings offer multiple ways of listening to the space; at times engaging with the collective effervescence of the site, at others drawing us towards subtle acoustic phenomena and vibrations that we would ordinarily “screen out”. Although specifically local, ‘The Pitches’ contributes to the sense of a broader global narrative playing out beyond this particular community as it adjusts towards the new social, physical and intangible realities we now face.

Fowler’s second piece will be released later in the series.

Project Details

‘In the open’ was available for a limited time during 2020 to listen to on Bandcamp and Podcast platforms. Each work was mastered for listening on headphones whilst walking and spending time outdoors.

Credits

Recorded with Mid-Side stereo mics; stereo omni mics which capture frequencies down to 1hz (originally intended for military purposes); ORTF mics, Stereo Shotgun Mics; small portable recorders with inbuilt mics and contact microphones.

Mastering by Stephan Mathieu /
Schwebung Mastering.

With thanks to:
Bridget Fowler, Corin & Liath Sworn, Andrea Fisher, Mark Vernon, Peter and Ted Sherry, Margaret Salmon, Steven from Belgium, Everyone at North Kelvin Meadows.
Analogue processing of floodlight gong by John Chantler.

North Kelvin Meadow/
The Children’s Wood
76 Kelbourne Street
Glasgow G20 8PR

‘In the open’ is a series of audio works that have been conceived during lockdown conditions and devised for listening to during our daily walks and time outdoors. Prompted by the restrictions necessitated by Covid-19, and the way these continue to affect our public and social lives, ‘In the open’ has been created as a way of connecting, at a time when we are separated.

The project comprises seven new works by Glasgow-based artists Luke Fowler, Lauren Gault, Ashanti Harris, Sulaïman Majali, Duncan Marquiss, and Margaret Salmon, each working from different points of reference and experience to explore geographies, histories and globally linked emotions, with Glasgow’s parks, green spaces, and other walking routes of the city in mind.

The works take various forms – experimental sound, field recordings, readings, performance and conversation – with each reflecting different rhythms and altered soundscapes in the city. They offer forms of intimacy, emotional trajectories, diaristic journeys and touch without touching; suggest a redefinition of our relationship to nature and the city as a strategy for living; propose new understandings of time and location; or else provide a record of the unseen forces and invisible labour that supports society.

Designed for headphones, the works are imagined as being listened to outdoors but can of course be listened to anywhere and will exist beyond this particular place and present moment in time.

‘In the open’ allows us to continue our commitment to supporting artists and developing new works. Each audio work has been released between July and September 2020 on The Common Guild website and Bandcamp and is now available as a Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

Artist Biographies

Scottish artist, filmmaker and musician Luke Fowler has developed a practice that is, at the same time, singular and collaborative, poetic and political, structural and documentary, archival and deeply human. With an emphasis on communities of people, outward thinkers and the history of the left, his 16mm films tell the stories of alternative movements in Britain, from psychiatry to photography to music to education. Whilst some of his early films dealt with music and musicians as subjects, in later works sound itself becomes a key concern. (Maria Palacios Cruz)

Lauren Gault is an artist born in Belfast and based in Glasgow and Magheramourne, Northern Ireland. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, and works in sculpture, installation and writing.

Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘C I T H R A’, Gasworks, London (2020); ‘forgets in knots’, Kantine, Brussels, ‘drye eyes’, Grand Union, Birmingham, ‘O-n’, curated by David Dale Gallery at The Workbench, Milan (all 2019); ‘present cOmpany’, CCA Derry-Londonderry; ‘sequins’, (with Sarah Rose), Glasgow International, (all 2018); ‘lumpers and splitters’, Prairie Underground, Seattle (2017); he was there when I first smelled the smell, and now he is the smell, (with Zoe Claire Miller) Rinomina, Paris, (2016); ‘lipstick-NASA’, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2015); ‘fugue states’ (with Allison Gibbs), CCA, Glasgow (2015). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Baltic39 (2017); Frutta, Rome, (2016); and SALTS, Basel (2014). Upcoming projects include ‘Some Triangular Thoughts’, a publication with SLOWGLASS, 2020 and a solo exhibition at The Tetley, Leeds in 2021.

Ashanti Harris is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and researcher working with dance, film, performance and sculpture. With a focus on re-contextualising historical narratives, her work dissects the movement of people, ideas and things, together with the wider social implications of these movements. She is co-director of Project X, a creative education programme platforming dance and performance from the African and Caribbean diaspora; and works collaboratively as part of the arts collective Glasgow Open Dance School (G.O.D.S), facilitating experimental movement workshops and research groups.

Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘The Skeleton of a Name’, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, and‘Second Site’, Civic Room, Glasgow (both 2019). Group shows and performances include: ‘Pre-Ramble’, David Dale, Glasgow (2020); ‘Walking Through the Shadows Eyes Open’, SUBSOLO Laboratório de Arte, Sao Paolo; ‘BLIP!’ Annuale Edinburgh; ‘As of Yet’, Many Studios, Glasgow; ‘Just Start Here’, The Anatomy Rooms, Aberdeen; and ‘Festival of the Not’, Circa Projects, Newcastle (all 2019).

Sulaïman Majali is a Glasgow-based artist born in London. Recent exhibitions include: ‘WHAT’S AHEAD, WHAT’S KNOWN’, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2020); ‘saracen go home’ (solo exhibition), Collective Gallery Edinburgh (2020); ‘Pixelated Peripheries // مساحات مبكسلة’, ACC, Haifa, Palestine (2019); ‘something vague and irrational’, Celine, Glasgow, (2019); and ‘Mene Mene Tekel Parsin’ (curated by Jesse Darling), Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2017). Screenings and events include the International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany (2020); EARTH HOLD, Qalandiya International Biennial, Serpentine Galleries, London (2018); and the 8th Cairo Video Festival, Egypt (2017).

Majali was shortlisted for the Margaret Tait Award 2020/21 and is currently participating in a two-year artist/researcher-in-residence programme at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art. Majali will present the solo exhibition, ‘false dawn’ at Studio Pavilion as part of the postponed Glasgow International in 2021.

Duncan Marquiss is an artist based in Glasgow who works with video, drawing and music. His work explores analogies, patterns and connections between the natural and the artificial, considering the fuzzy edges of these categories. He is currently developing a documentary film looking at animal behaviour and AI.

Marquiss graduated from the MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 2005, and undertook the LUX Associate Artist Programme in 2009. He received the Margaret Tait Award in 2015. Recent exhibitions and screenings include; ‘Artists In The Cinema’, Projections, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (2020); ‘Stalking The Image’, GoMA, Glasgow (2019); ‘Texture Map’ (solo exhibition) Platform, Easterhouse (2019); ‘We Would Be Lost Without You’, Experimenta, London International Film Festival (2018); and ‘Copying Errors’ (solo exhibition), Dundee Contemporary Arts (2016).

Margaret Salmon is a Glasgow-based artist, born in New York. Concerned with a shifting constellation of relations, such as those between camera and subject, human and animal, or autobiography and ethnography, Salmon’s films often examine the gendered, emotive dynamics of social interactions and representational forms.

Selected solo exhibitions have been held at institutions including Dundee Contemporary Arts (2018/19), Tramway (2018) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (2015); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, USA (2011); Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2007); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2007) and Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2006). Her work has been featured in film festivals and major international survey exhibitions, including the Berlin Biennale (2010), Venice Biennale (2007) and London Film Festival (2018, 2016, 2014). Salmon won the inaugural MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2006, was shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2018 and the 2019 Margaret Tait Award. A new 35mm film and photographic works will be featured in Glasgow International 2021.

Further Info

Documents

Transcript: Ashanti Harris – 'History Haunts the Body'
Transcript: Lauren Gault – 'Méduse'
Transcript: Margaret Salmon – 'Clouded'

Read the review by Chris Sharratt in Frieze
Read the review by Adam Benmakhlouf in The Skinny
Read the review by Neil Cooper in The Drouth

Additional Links

Luke Fowler – 'The Pitches' | 31'50"
Lauren Gault – ‘Méduse’| 23'32"
Duncan Marquiss – 'Contact Call' | 30'45"
Margaret Salmon – 'Clouded' | 13'08"
Ashanti Harris – 'History Haunts the Body' | 23’ 36”
Sulaïman Majali – 'strange winds' | 18'18"
Luke Fowler – ‘A walk through a different city’ | 35'56"

Project Details

‘In the open’ was available for a limited time during 2020 to listen to on Bandcamp and Podcast platforms. Each work was mastered for listening on headphones whilst walking and spending time outdoors.

Read the Commentary by Brandon LaBelle –

Luke Fowler’s second acoustic work for ‘In the open’ is a sound portrait of Glasgow’s urban core, emptied out of human presence during the months of lockdown earlier this year. Edited from over 500 hours of audio recordings, ‘A walk through a different city’ traces a sonic journey that begins at the top of Sauchiehall Street, winds through alleyways and lanes, past hotels and empty car parks before taking in Buchanan Street – the heart of Glasgow’s commercial shopping district – heading south through a deserted Central Station, and concluding under the Kingston Bridge, by the River Clyde.

‘A walk through a different city’ frames the city’s acoustic environment at the height of the pandemic, defamiliarized through the absence of crowds. This radically altered ambience allows us to tune into a broader and more nuanced soundscape to the one we are accustomed to. With the shoppers, buskers and traffic gone, Fowler’s microphones instead amplify impressions from a transformed acoustic environment; extractor fans, electricity boxes and triggered alarms systems polarise our sonic experience. A vibrating undercurrent to the ordinary ambience of the city, the drones, rumbles and fluctuating tones at times take on a meditative, almost harmonic quality, whilst at others feel abrasive and disquieting.

The social sounds we do hear punctuate our perceptual field – snatches of overheard conversation, the sound of floors being mopped and bins being jet-washed, construction work being hastily erected and tannoy announcements being made. These encounters and micro-events map our social behaviour and trace new patterns emerging during these highly sensitive and anxious times.

‘A walk through a different city’ is a companion piece to ‘The Pitches’; a sound portrait of North Kelvin Meadow / The Children’s Wood. Both works document the ways in which the pandemic has altered the sonic and psychological experience of the city and its inhabitants.

Project Details

‘In the open’ was available for a limited time during 2020 to listen to on Bandcamp and Podcast platforms. Each work was mastered for listening on headphones whilst walking and spending time outdoors.

Credits

Mastering by Stephan Mathieu /
Schwebung Mastering.

With thanks to Alex Kapranos, Eric La Casa, and Mark Vernon.