Introduction

I have experienced Anthony and David’s ‘sound’ related installation work on a number of occasions, notably at Hilltown House in Westmeath and as part of the Two Places exhibition held simultaneously at Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast and the University of Limerick. I have always been impressed by its careful placement within the given exhibition space, by its integrity and
its perfection.

So what is ‘sound art’? According to the dictionary one of the (very many) meanings of ‘art’ is ‘the application of skill to production of beauty’.

‘Sound’ likewise admits of many definitions. At its most basic, it simply means ‘the sensation of hearing’, but I was delighted to discover that it can also be ‘a mental impression’ - this is perhaps the light in which we should view Kelly and Stalling’s work.

Sound Art is a curious amalgam - not composition, not visual art, but existing on the border, in the no-man’s-land between the senses. An ‘unknown point’ indeed...

In fact, we spend most of our lives inhabiting that same region - constantly bombarded with aural and visual stimuli, all too rarely pausing to really look or listen.

In a sense, an installation such as this is a chance to redress the balance. The usual ‘gallery’ experience of looking at objects against a neutral background is reversed, as it were, with the objects - so beautiful and intriguing in themselves - somehow becoming ‘background’ as a consequence of their placement in the Library space of IT Carlow - are in a constant state of flux. That those sounds are themselves found objects - part of the very background we habitually filter out - adds to this process of realignment.

Another important thing to remember is that this a true ‘once in a lifetime’ experience. This work is specifically of its place and time - if it were to be installed anywhere else it would no longer be the same piece. If true art has any purpose it must surely be to make us think anew about ourselves, our environment and our interactions with people and places - refocusing that ‘mental impression’, finding beauty, joy and inspiration in the everyday.

Gráinne Mulvey
June 2009

 

 

 

 

 

Unknown Point

Anthony Kelly David Stalling

Visualise Carlow April – May 2009