Reflected Back Into Space was recently exhibited at the Science Gallery London Pop Up as part of Resonance104.4fm's residency. Realised by the sound-art collective Gwaith Sŵn, it was a multi-channel audio installation which used highly directional speakers in a pitch black setting to create a sense of how architectural space is heard as much as it is seen or felt. Plunged into darkness with only a length of fluorescent cord to serve as a guide, visitors were faced with the cartoon like outline of a floor and two columns, indicative of a cool negative space. But while one might have clutched briefly for hints of Manny Farber, the dissolution of one's own body here in the dark meant that heightened abstraction was the order of the day. Pacing carefully through the void, one came abruptly on sounds bouncing off hard surfaces, sometimes immediately above, more often seemingly on the edge of perception. This was an acoustic work, deliberately cryptic and decidedly self-effacing. Gwaith Sŵn favour small, discrete gestures - chewing, swallowing, exasperated asides from the far reaches of the process of consumption - in which individual contributions were impossible to identify. An anonymous exercise in recalcitrant aesthetics, Reflected Back Into Space provided an elegant, enigmatic and muted antidote to the cracked bombast and overwhelming information overload which typifies our cultural moment - the Age of Spectacular Infantilism. For the record, the contributing artists were Kevin Ka Wei Chan, Sam Conran, Paul Freeman, Daniel Linn-Pearl, Jonathan Mayne, Gyorgy Ono and Stephen Stamper. A live event by Gwaith Sŵn will be presented at SGL Pop Up on 27 November at 7.30pm.
