London Sprawl
Sprawl has set the tone and the scene for sound innovation in London for the past 10 years creating a space for experiencing it as an art form rather than as an excuse to socialize. Sprawl is an artist led, London based underground playground and test tube for current developments in sound that was set up by Iris Garrelfs and Douglas Benford in 1996. Their events provide a setting for presenting current work in experimental sound art, including turntable sounds, global internet link ups, virtual parties, minidisc doctoring and live music events at venues in London and music festivals. Through their activities, Sprawl champion innovative work in sound art and bring to London some of the most eclectic and forward-thinking practitioners from Europe and beyond.
Sprawl celebrated 10 years of the sonic art club on 25 January at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) with a night of electronic music featuring Sprawl curators Iris Garrelfs and Si-cut.db (aka Douglas Benford) and Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud). Scanner had hosted The Electronic Lounge—a monthly digital club which lasted for 5 years in the mid 90s at the ICA and served as an incubator of sound art experiments. So the January event revisited one of Sprawl’s big inspirations—with a rousing set by Scanner—and hosted a set by Electronic Lounge resident Tony Morley from the Leaf label (based in the UK), while Garrelfs and Benford made selections from their favourite sounds of the Sprawl past.
Knowing the longstanding presence of both founders, it came as a surprise when Her Noise—a recent exhibition at the South London Gallery celebrating the best female artists in the London sound art scene—did not include the work of Sprawl’s Iris Garrelfs. So it goes to show that major exhibitions of a specific genre can have gaps. In connection with the exhibition, Kim Gordon (of experimental music band Sonic Youth) held a performance/talk at the Tate Modern. During that event, comments were made by the audience about the lack of a sound art scene in London, which seemed surprising as Sprawl has been carrying the torch for many years. With a feature in The Wire’s January edition, upcoming tour and festival dates as well as record releases by both founders, Sprawl aim to keep that alive for some time to come.
Monica Biagioli
What disappointed me at the ‘her noise’ exhibition was a lack of a sense of the visual. This might not have been the remit of the show, so it might be an unfair criticism, but there is so much space for some kind of fusion between sound and image – beyond the artwork for 12” releases. I haven’t checked out sprawl to see what it is about but I would like to see somewhere where sound and image are allowed to communicate. Christina Kubisch created these great kind of sonic maps at the south London show if they could be looped into the visual it could mean really interesting fusions – something that seems to be being ignored at the moment and needs to encouraged in some form or other – visual sonics… where are they?
/julian soare 01/03/2006