Sirens at 66east gallery, Amsterdam
by Ralph Borland
March in Amsterdam is sunny and cold. I had arrived a few days before the opening of the former Durbanite James Beckett-curated 'Sirens'. I'd come early to install my work on the show and help out a little. Beckett and I drove in a hired van past a phalanx of wind-generators on our way to Marc Bain's warehouse. bain is an 'antikraak' - paying cheap rent on a large empty commercial space to prevent other (similar) people from squatting or 'kraak'-ing it.
Bain had a battery-powered motor-driven skateboard which he could ride around the warehouse, controlling his speed with the hand-held throttle. There was a lot of equipment in the space, mechanical, electrical and audio debris. He had some enormous speakers connected to black PVC pipes - sound cannons, which could be fitted together in different configurations - and a pair of very heavy air-raid sirens from a work last shown at the Busan Biennale in South Korea, which we were here to pick up.
His piece for 'Sirens' was a scaled-down version of this work: two small electrical sirens facing each other inside a foam-lined black case, their speeds controllable with Scalextric-style hand-held accelerators. Driving both sirens by yourself or with another person, the two sound-waves overlay each other to create shifting patterns, audible through the walls of the case. The two large sirens from the Korean show, where they'd been housed in a special sound-proof box, would also be on display, but inactive. If they'd been switched on, the noise would have been deafening, unbearably loud.
Sirens produce sound quite directly and violently, chopping and propelling air through the rapid rotation of perforated metal discs, or spinning blades like turbines. The turbulent air produces a sound wave - or is a sound wave. Sirens were developed as an instrument to generate and experiment with tones. They became 'a means by which to describe and measure the composite nature of sound, and to some extent demystify the complexity of acoustic phenomena' (exhibition catalogue).
The tone of the sound varies with the speed of the rotation, or the number of holes or blades.
Beckett's show at the mostly architectural exhibition space 66East was a tribute to the siren. From the mer-women who lured men to wreck their ships on the rocks of ancient Greece, to the siren in music (from Public Enemy to Roxy Music) and to sirens produced by artists. Beckett invited Bain, Andre Avalas, Raviv Ganchrow and myself, amongst others, to submit works for the show. I showed Jubilee, an automated vuvuzela from my 2006 Cape Town show 'Promised land'. While still producing a loud noise, Jubilee is actually a klaxon rather than a siren, its sound produced by a blast of compressed air across a pierced diaphragm. But like a siren, it is an expression of alarm, of urgency or emergency.
Avalas had drilled holes in a heavily-toothed circular-saw blade and positioned the nozzle of an air-compressor where the holes would pass when the saw was running. There was also a metal tongue fitted to the edge of the saw that rubbed against the teeth as they spun. It produced an unholy racket. He'd videotaped the contraption running, and displayed the video next to the head-high contraption, mercifully unplugged. The threat of violence was thick in the small basement room in which he showed the work, the amplified sound of the video recording filling the space.
66East has a small back room with peeling wallpaper which was cleared out for the show. It amplified the mood of Ganchrow's meditative and resonant siren piece. Like Bain's, it involved the shifting in and out of phase of two turbine sirens. They were bolted into either end of a three metre long tube, facing each other, resting on the floor. A motor controller started the turbines from still, ramping them up gradually to a peak speed, and dropping them down again, continuously. One was set to run very slightly slower than the other, so that the difference between the two speeds produces a shifting interference. The tube resonated several times over the course of the cycle. The air was filled with a hum that swelled in and out as it hit the resonant frequency of the tube.
At the opening of the show, there was a performance by Der Wexel's mini mechanical orchestra. This is a collection of intricate devices that produced sound from the movement of metal and wood on each other, each individually controllable by the artist through a primitive switchboard.
There's something beautiful about the visible, mechanical production of sound, which the purely digital or electronically synthesised has to contend with, and which Beckett's show displayed thoroughly and engagingly.
For more information about the show visit: www.66east.org
Image archive on 66east's site:
http://66east.cubicle-design.com/press/sirens.html
Ralph Borland is a South African artist currently studying in
Dublin
Opened: March 18
Closed: April 22
66 East: Centre for Urban Culture
Sumatrastraat 66h, Amsterdam NL
Tel: 31 (0)6 447 54 773
Email: mail@66east.org
www.66east.org
Hours: Fri - Sun 2pm - 6pm
