I was up in Oxford a couple of weekends ago attending a course on how to understand local authorities accounts and very enlightening it was too (*waves at Steve Beynon and Dave Burbage*).
Having to stay overnight, I popped along to an event at the Museum of the History of Science on the Friday night that turned out to be part of the World première of the Ethometric Museum.
It’s a sound-art installation orchestrated by Ray Lee – and frankly a pretty amazing experience – one that we recommend that you see if you have a chance.
The set-up for the performance is that Ray and his team found the Ethometric machines in a basement after a mysterious 1970s fire in Dalston, London. Since then they’ve rebuilt the machines – which he says were very popular at one point in history – to function and, by way of a side benefit, emit sounds.
The performance begins
After the strict curator introduces the equipment, warning the visitors not to touch the machines due to their potentially dangerous nature, she welcomes Ray Lee. A bespectacled Ray passes between the machines, bringing them each into life, building mosaic of layering sounds that meld to create something quite extraordinary.
The low lighting fluctuates, drawing attention to different equipment as the event continues. There a wide selection of equipment, some machines spin their speakers around on foot-long poles, others consist of simple nuts racing around in a circle on a tin surface.
VentnorBlog was lucky enough to capture some audio of the event for your enjoyment.
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/ethometric-museum-performance-oxford-april-2011-idient.mp3]The finale is a pretty spectacular one, as metre-wide discs with speakers attached to them spin around mesmerising the listeners in near darkness.
After listening, the people who’d witnessed what had just happened were in a stunned silence, not knowing how to react now it had concluded.
Ray Lee interview
When they had left we had a chance to chat to the man behind the project, Ray Lee, finding out more about the background behind it and how it came about
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/ray-lee-interview-ethometric-museum-performance-oxford-april-2011.mp3]
Victoria: Oxford Contemporary Music
The event was commissioned and all organised by Oxford Contemporary Music, who if you going to be in Oxford, I would definitely recommend checking out to see what they’ve got going on.
Chatting to Victoria, the General Manager at Oxford Contemporary Music, you can hear below about a wide range of their past events, as well as what lead to the Ethometric Museum arriving at the Museum of the History of Science. [audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/victoria-oxford-contemporary-music-interview.mp3]
If you’re lucky you can catch the event in Oxford on a short while longer and beyond there, it might well be touring. Definitely recommended.
