ARTPROJX SPACE
AURA SATZ
9 July - 15 August 2008
Automamusic
film photography drawing
Automamusic
Aura Satz’s ‘Automamusic’ project has at its
core a film about mechanical music. Intricate views of self-playing violins,
accordions, drums, pianolas, and orchestrions are offset by scenes in
which floating musical instruments are played by invisible hands. The
film highlights the similarities between the beginnings of musical reproduction
in the 19th century and spiritualist invocations of the dead through
sound. ‘Automamusic’ breathes the ghost back into the machine,
inhabiting the figurative space between sound and source, when music
had not yet become abstracted into the grooves of the gramophone record.
In addition to the series of hand-printed cibachrome photographs which
recall spiritualist photography, the exhibition includes drawings inspired
by early patents for mechanical or hybrid musical instruments.
The film ‘Automamusic’ was developed with support from Film
and Video Umbrella, funded by Arts Council England and Artsadmin, with
kind assistance Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network and a
special thanks to the Museum of Music Automatons, Seewen, Switzerland.
Aura Satz
Aura Satz completed a theory/practice PhD at the Slade School
of Fine Art in 2002, where she later held a Henry Moore Foundation
Post-doctoral Sculpture Fellowship (2002-04). She has performed, exhibited
and screened her work nationally and internationally, including FACT
(Liverpool), Site Gallery (Sheffield), Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea
di Trento (Italy), De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill-on-Sea), the Zentrum
Paul Klee (Switzerland), Whitechapel Gallery, the Victoria & Albert
Museum, The Photographer’s Gallery, Tate Britain, Beaconsfield
Gallery (London). She has taught at the Slade, Central Saint
Martin’s, and the History of Art Department of UCL, and been
invited to speak at venues such as the Henry Moore Institute, Baltic,
the Hayward Gallery, Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College.
Since 2004 she has been a fellow at the London Consortium, where she
currently teaches. Aura Satz is supported by Artsadmin. 'Automamusic' recently featured in the Artprojx at Late at Tate Britain artist film compilation 'Still-Film', selected by David Gryn.
‘Automamusic’ has led to the creation of an Automatic Ensemble
which will premiere in Basel (Switzerland) in January 2009, and includes
as its core members Aura Satz and musician Aleks Kolkowski.
Aura Satz’s solo sound installation ‘GLISSOLALIA’ (Beaconsfield’s
third annual Soundtrap commission) is showing at Beaconsfield Gallery
until the end of July. www.beaconsfield.ltd.uk
Weds 16 July 6.30-8.30pm
Andrew Renton (art critic/curator and Director of the Curatorial Programme, Goldsmiths) in conversation with Aura Satz on the withdrawal of authorship in relation to sound, sound technology and sound art, with live mechanical music performance by Aura Satz. RSVP required to info@artprojxspace.com
Automamusic at Artprojx Space has been extended to Saturday 15 August. The Gallery is open normal times and days through July and by appointment throughout August.
Aura Satz Press Release and List of Works PDF