20/1/16 artist research: surreal surround sound: Kayla Painter and John Bence

image jo williams copyright

HOWLING OWL PRESENT: JOHN BENCE AND KAYLA PAINTER

Friday 15 January 2016

Howling Owl Records invites artists, John Bence and Kayla Painter to perform in the Dark Studio.

For the opening event of the weekend, Howling Owl bring together John Bence and Kayla Painter for an intimate live show in the Dark Studio.

John Bence

Mercurial, elusive and of seemingly limitless imagination, John Bence is rising to the surface. From a family background rich in classical pedigree and firmly embedded in Bristol’s forward-facing electronic music culture, Bence has pooled a breadth of influence scarcely credible for a composer only entering his second decade, and now he is starting to put his inspiration into live and recorded motion.

As a producer he is already thinking ten steps ahead, often incorporating voice or home recorded percussion into his cyclical technique of scoring, recording, manipulating, re-scoring and re-recording in waves, creating heady, intoxicating ripples of harmony and noise.

An obscure snippet of dubplate drone under a previous moniker was enough for Nicolas Jaar, who instantly approached him about a release on his Other People label. Six months on Disquiet was released, a masterful hybrid of classical and electronic clocking in at a tantalising ten minutes. 
 

Kayla Painter

Heavily influenced by Bristol’s legendary bass heritage, Kayla’s sound draws from techno, garage and post dub; she crafts her experimental soundscapes from intriguing and restless rhythms, surging deep bass lines and warm washes of cloudy ambience.

In 2014 Kayla expanded her live show to include a dual screen setup, creating beautiful and immersive depth. The hypnotising visual show, crafted with the help of Jason Baker (The Crisis Project), draws on themes and aesthetics seen in her artwork. Please note: due to the size of the space, this performance will be a singular screen AV show.

Review

My heart sank when I realised I was at an event, where, yet again, my failure to have a brutal arty fringe/hair do, and lack of granny coat made me stand out as an outsider. 

I got chatting to a local who came over after a smiled back awkwardly after cramming some crisps in my mouth. Didnt' think it would add to my lack of cool to be crunching my way through the perfomance, I nearly perforated my foodpipe wolfing them down.

Turns out the guy Dave Williams, helps run Jelly Records. Still not sure of this significance, especially after he told me they do a set on Bradley Stoke Community Radio. (At this point I worried less about feeling uncool until he started talking). Apparently he'd helped champion Kayla Painter, and lo and behold in the break, she handed over some EPs, for him to play.

Think I was expecting to be underwhelmed
I'd seen Kayla Painters video hyped on Bristol Social Media last year, the busy, surreal footage made in a recognisable Cabot Circus was distracting.

She performed behind a large gauze like screen, cable tied to a frame, whilst the person responsible for the visuals Jason Baker was out of sight in the blackness.

The building, layering and tilting of the visuals, to give a 3-D effect was mesmerising. I was pretty much transfixed throughout the whole set. Bristol trance, without any chemicals, sat in darkened boxy room on the second floor of the Arnolfini on a Friday night.
I'd taken a punt.

 Kayla, artful of fringe, slow of DJ dancing motion, was quietly spoken and completely lacking in attitude. As was John Bence the main act, who despite ending it with mentions of Jesus and Hallelujah, performed an equally awe inspiring set, of growling, droney-hypnotic rhythms. I noticed my Sanctum co-conspirator and all round font-of-knowledge guru at Queens Road Wes in the audience. Later found out he was more taken with John's work and knows him already. can you become cool by third hand acquaintances? Anyways, great way to spend an evening that felt like a punt. Still struggling to answer earnest questions about what kind of sound art I do. 
To do list:
1. come up with a coherent answer to sound art question
2. get a fringe/clip-on fringe
3. Write more coherent blog entries 

http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/howling-owl-presents-john-bence-and-kayla-painter-av-show

walk the line

richard long lonely hearts
loner rambler 
likes mud
WLTM fellow introverts for cross-country walks and rock hunting

each bio i read about Long talks about him being kicked out of art school
not just any art school
the one i'm studying at at the moment
i suppose the point being is that 'in spite' of that he became famous and successful, ie it was a very good thing that happened

2 things of note here, why speak of a 'supposed' failure unless it's to big yourself up and stick 2 fingers up to an institute from your home town. Do we still need to know this? Why is it still part of his narrative

2. Long's current piece, boyhood line, is on the downs. Durdham downs, an expanse of grassland owned by the merchant venturers ( a possible shady secret type society if we are to believe cynical conspiracy theorists from Massive attack. Or is it just having beef over it mainly being a man's club of red trouser wearers). Anyway I digress. The downs, is cut in pieces by roads linking wealthy parts of bristol to each other. If this was Longs upbringing it does make me wonder about successful artists. 

He is of his time. Long and Andy Goldsworthy, outside making serious art out of nature long before cynical Saatchi got his mitts on the BYA and the landscape of Britains 9(capitalist) art scene changed forever.

What was the man walking away, to or from. Heavily eyebrowed, intensely staring out of portraits of him at the arnolfini show. This is a man to be taken seriously. He might be a middle class Bristolian, but goddamit he's got gravitas and punk to him. He just chucked out of art school the little bleeder and makes art from mud. And stones. This artist is all man. Like the stonehengers before him, he is a pagan stone mover. If art is about context. His stone moving and walking is art. We call cave art, art, because it's visually recognisable and figurative. It may well just be a visual shopping list for a bunch of illiterate cave people, daydreaming about their next ideal feast. But we label it art. It's the context. We assume, holed up for the winter, fed up of bopping their female kin over the head with clubs and giving them a proper seeing to neolithic style, that they then got bored and needed a more cultured and creative outlook for their developing frontal lobes and energy. So of course they drew. We all know that drawing and painting are proper art. Using wood fired charcoal, ochre and probably spit. 

Fast forward a couple of millenia, and there's a bloke from BRistol, traipsing round the planet recording it all and then selling photos of it in books.

My annoying trains of thoughts when I was walking round are sadly like an amateur gallery botherer. Yes, but why? I get the pleasing duality of mud on black wall versus mud on white wall. I'm intrigued to know if he's even taller than his photos suggest and he didn't need a step ladder to reach the ceiling. I wonder about the sloppiness of the mud and the vessel he held it in. Not really the lofty thoughts of an art critic. There was something like nail marks down a blackboard, a slight slow meditative form to the strokes applied that seems like a controlled frenzy of a madman. Or just an obsessive. My doctor mind wonders about his wanders and note taking. A bit on the spectrum? But aren't we all
Recording details, miles walked, objects seen, thrush blood. All verifying the deeds and walks done. So it's not up for questioning. An impressive walk from Bristol to London bridge in 39 hours. Again, tall man, long legs, quick walker. This obsessive need to leave a mark. I was here, I matter, I did it really. It made me sad. If a woman had done this, I think it would be dismissed as contrived,conceited and light weight. I think Long looks too intense and scary to have his credibility called into questions. But the female vagabond artist? What was she doing all that time. On her own? Did no-one want to marry her? Why's she making such a spectacle of herself? With mud, can' she go to Glastonbury and be a hippy there. Nancy Holt, did similar trips, but on a slightly more altruistic and secretive mission, left objects for friends at places and recorded the locations.

All these conflicting ideas. How does he afford to do this? The downs. The guy grew up near the downs. Must be middle class. That explains it. Anthony Caro, Henry Moore, all growing up in penury.
Just like someone convinced to go to medical school and growing up a stones throw from the downs. Privileged and playing around with art. It's a disgrace. That's me I'm talking about now. Not Long, I have no real idea about his background. Although it's a familiar story throughout art history (and I reference these people for whom the only possible similarity will be our backgrounds, not our successes) but Tapies, Miro, Redon, all academic/professional families. This is why I'm bemused at the criticism levelled at Tracy Emin and Damian Hirst and friends, the little jumpstarts made it when they shouldn'thave done. They're not establishment. How awful for the british bourgeosie to be challenged by people they would never rub shoulders with otherwise. I think of this each time I see another oil painting in turdy colours at the RWA in an open exhibition. This is what the fight is against. People lauding the skills of people that can copy nature as proper genuine artists. This is still happening now, ie contemporarily. 

God I'm waffling. I think my reaction to work like Long's like that of the recent exhibition of Randall-Page's (ooh, double-barrelled, there's a surprise) at the RWA, was an irritation at the simplicity of it. Because that's what I'm doing and obsessed with. Where on earth does that leave the rest of us, if the 'successes' are keeping it simple. I turn that on it's head though as, despite the insistent critical middle class narrow minded art naive numpty in my head still screams the loudest, the other more, er..authentic one whispers, pleased, it's ok, this is what it's about. If other people label as art/not art. it doesn't matter. It's all context and it's about experience. Not skill. And how good is that. To stick to your guns over decades and keep making the work and journeys that please you. That make sense of things. To record them and show them on walls. To mark out a line with your feet, and use those marks to show how you've marked your time on this planet. I was here. This is what I did. I'm tall I'm intimidating looking, but goddamit, I'll do what I please because I can stay true to myself. I'm rebel like that. I won't live how you tell me, I won't not break the rules. Even if it means I get chucked out of art school. Said Richard Long. Maybe. Or never

arnolfini exhibit

show by Josephine Pryde, Berlin based, British photographer, who subverts the glossy advertising style of images our lives are saturated with.

I hope to go to her talk.
I'm trying to avoid reading up the bumpf before i walk round somewhere.
Always feel for artists stuck up on the first floor. less foot fall. but i guess the distraction of the view of the water concentrates the gaze. hard not to be distracted or trip over the surreal placement of a train large enough to sit on that sat pointlessly awaiting a bum at one end of the room.
quite how the hornsby collectors' wet dream fitted in I couldn't be sure, these thoughts more unnerving with photos of white liquids bubbling in photos around the track. cornflour and water forms formed from noise from speakers apparently. all a bit too obtuse for me


the photos in main rooms are apparently staged and lit in the 'blue hour' the time between dawn and day when natural light lends a sci-fi glow to natural lighting.

The idea being apparently that the objects we use have become more and more an extension of ourselves. we do hold (our) world in the palm of our hands, hence the shots of long slim manicured fingered anonymous hands holding various objects, phones and gestures.

Did make me think about the photography final show at bower ashton and that becoming a fine artist, lecturer, success, whatever, someone with gravitas and appeal is all such a load of blurry bollocks. do what feels right, it can't be wrong, but it probably will be but by then you'll have moved on, no-one will give a crap so there's no point in giving one either.



http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/josephine-pryde