Audio Arts: Volume 16 Nos 3 & 4

00:00:00 Tracey Emin interviewed by William Furlong in May 1997. Wigwam Sam performed by Tracey Emin aged ten precedes this conversation, which was recorded in the South London Gallery during her exhibition I Need Art Like I Need God. Emin starts by elaborating on the title of the exhibition and then speaks about a number of works and their references starting with TACI MlN, which comprises a Ouija board on a green baize table and two chairs. Emin relates this work to early family experiences in Margate and responds to issues raised of spirituality, mysticism and every-day experience. She goes on to describe how her mind in art comes from a completely different era, a time when people were more romantically charged up - were more passionate - were more spiritual about things. Other themes explored on the tape include: continuing references to her own body, the importance of personal friendships and writing as the backbone in my work. Other works discussed include: Swedish Room - Exorcism of the Last painting I Ever Made (reconstructed installation); Mad Tracey From Margate, (large turquoise blanket with appliquéd words made from friends clothing) and Emin's Army - Montenegro (including a world map occupied by small 'Emin tanks'). 00:26:47 Billy Name interviewed by Jean Wainwright in April 1997. Billy Name is synonymous with Andy Warhol. His Factory photographs from 1963-9 at the I.C.A., London capture the extraordinaryatmosphere of the amphetamine-fuelled workshop which was also his home. Here, Name talks about Warhol's artistic process and collaborations within his own experimental post Modern Hollywood. His photographs, a distillation of the transient beauty of the Warhol Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Baby Jane Holzer, Ingrid Superstar, Nico and the Velvet Underground, are a record of their extraordinary lives, which he vividly recalls here.

00:00:00 John McCracken interviewed by William Furlong in March 1997. The interface between the physical and the imaginative provides one definition of the work of John McCracken. In this interview, recorded in his exhibition at the Lisson Gallery London, McCracken extends this 'reading' in saying that 'I want to make forms that are both simple and have a sense of being or existence'. Although playing a pivotal role in the emergence of Minimalism in the 1960s, along with Andre and Judd, his work requires a more elaborate critical frame than that of Minimalism in that the artist introduces surprising references to Jungian ideas, Surrealism, ex-terrestrial sources and to himself as the artist being the conduit through which the work comes into being. Here as a reference he cites the symbolic presence of the obelisk in Kubrick's film 2001. He goes on to speak about the physicality of his works and the integral interrelation between form, colour and surface. Other works in the exhibition, which although conceived three decades ago were constructed in 1997, include: Argos, Cephren and Water. The artist concludes by speaking about the influence of west coast automobile and surfboard finishes, which provide an evocative and transcendental dimension to a surface. Another influence mentioned here is form in Egyptian architecture and sculpture. 00:34:23 Lucy Gunning interviewed by Jean Wainwright in May 1997. Lucy Gunning discusses her continuing fascination with sound and communication at Matt's Gallery, London, during her show Malcolm, Lloyd, Angela, Norman, Jane. They share a common disability, and their stuttering bounces from the disparate old-fashioned video monitors placed at different heights on tables, the floor and a wooden staircase. Each monitor stops and starts abruptly, dislocating the sound and frustrating the listener, while at the same time drawing them round the space. Like her other works: The Singing Lesson, Horse lmpressionists and Climbing Round My Room, the work transcends banality and reveals complex metaphors of anxiety and the nature of will and desire.

00:00:00 Fiona Banner reading from 'Born on the Fourth of July' in June 1997. Fiona Banner reads an extract* from THE NAM, A 1,000-page all-text flick book. It is a compilation of total descriptions of well known Vietnam films: Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, Hamburger Hill and Platoon. The films apparently never begin or end, but are described in their entirety, spliced together to make a gutting 11-hour supermovie. Banner describes the film as if she is there, not influencing the plot, but always on set running alongside the action. The breathless style of the reading is an attempt to keep up with the action. THE NAM is a constantly present, seamless account of the films. You might say that this book is the ultimate unedited text, a world in which nothing is prioritised, but everything. As you begin to know, you only see what you see. 00:06:35 Jeremy Deller interviewed. The Uses of Literacy is an exhibition that has been shown at the Norwich Art Gallery and the Cabinet Gallery in London. It was the product of correspondence with fans of the Manic Street Preachers which resulted in an exhibition of writings and images of the band. For Audio Arts a number of the contributors were interviewed at the Cabinet Gallery about the show. With thanks to Aishling, Emma Harris, Sarah Meadham, Edward Meadham, Abi Rivitt and Loryma Sayonara for taking part. Jeremy Deller, July 1997. Recorded, July 1997. Production: Zöe Irvine. 00:28:05 Valie Export interviewed by Gudrun Bielz in May 1997. This interview was recorded at the Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna at the beginning of Valie Export's retrospective there titled Split:Reality. Export has been a pioneer in the use of video in art since the 1960s, and here speaks about her particular interest in the art form, and how new media, including computers and laser technology, feature in her art practice. Split:Reality is also the title of a video installation in the exhibition and relates to a 28 metre-long passage which runs from the inside to the outside of the museum, constructed in glass on one side and lead on the other. In discussing the passage the artist adds: "When I received an invitation to make this exhibition, I wanted to tear apart the whole museum so as to make two parts ¿ something can go out from the institution of the museum and something can come in ¿ I mean fresh air¿ so it is a kind of rebellion against the petrified institutional meaning of the museum". The artist also makes reference to the multifaceted and multi-layered nature of meaning, reality and perception. The conversation then covers earlier works including Time:Gaps:Space:Fissures, made originally in 1 973 and reconstructed for this exhibition and her first performance also titled Split:Reality, realised at the Arts Lab, London in 1969.

00:00:00 Sarah Lucas interviewed by Jean Wainwright in July 1997. In conversation at Sadie Coles HQ, London. Sarah Lucas discusses her latest work, Bunny Gets Snookered. Working with ordinary objects, her conceptual sculptures stimulate the imagination. Satirising the sexist world of laddishness, her installations and photographs court the strange and ephemeral. Although claiming anti-establishment affinities, Lucas is one of the key figures in the recent group of British artists enjoying international acclaim. Her multi-coloured stuffed tights fashioned into 'bunnies' and clamped to chairs, together with a full-sized snooker table present a surreal vision in the pristine gallery space. 00:21:24 Adi Rosenblum interviewed. Bricks & Kicks is a self-organised space in Vienna run by the artists Adi Rosenblum and Markus Muntean. Bricks and Kicks intends to create a more flexible exhibition context, reflecting recent transformations concerning role models of artist and curator. Here they speak about their project and Slaymobile presented at City Racing, London in March 1997. Slaymobile is a 'tableau vivant' which combines photography, drawing, video and performance elements in order to create a complex structure full of cross-references and operating on different formal and semantic layers. During the opening, two hired actors posed on orange plinths, with painted wounds on their limbs and faces and surrounded by life-size toy objects. Photographs of the scarred actors were displayed for the duration of the exhibition. The theme continued through a video, showing a young woman, whose skin is also covered with sores, wandering around the streets; doctored fashion images and pencil drawings were exhibited upstairs. The following recordings are part of 'Bricks & Kicks - Soundgarden', a string of audio pieces by seven Vienna-based artists selected by Muntean/Rosenblum: 00:30:17 Arye Wachsmuth soundwork titled 'Soundtrack 05.97' 00:32:17 4 Myka soundwork titled 'In a Rood Mood' 00:34:23 N.I.C.J.O.B. soundwork titled 'Zappsub' 00:36:39 Oliver Hangl soundwork titled 'Dantel Rose From A-Z' 00:39:25 Gerwald Rockenschaub soundwork titled 'Pitralon (Audio Arts Mix)' 00:42:01 Irene Lavine soundwork titled 'Phobia, Y After X' 00:47:12 Calliope Travlos soundwork titled 'Communicator Part 2'