Rose James: architecture and sound
James’ project, through a cloud of smoke and dust, explores the sounds behind the demolition of the Christchurch Police building.
The exhibition runs at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Christchurch from 6 July to 12 August.
Artist Rose James presents through a cloud of smoke and dust at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Christchurch from 6 July to 12 August.
This new work by James explores the sonic poetics of the disassembling and implosion of the Christchurch Police building in Hereford St. The sounds are reactivated in the gallery space across huge planes of steel. The surface becomes the medium through which the sound amplifies as it resonates in sympathy, graunches and thrills to the vibrations of the building’s destruction.
Rose James is a Christchurch native who now resides in Dunedin; she travelled up to record the demolition of the Christchurch Police building over a period of four weeks. She says, “The work is recorded using contact mics, so it only picks up surface vibrations, and the playback uses speaker drives that vibrate the steel rather than the air … resonance and vibration. The steel is reflective so you get to see yourself shimmering with the vibrating plates as they shudder and drone.”
See the exhibition at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Christchurch from 6 July to 12 August.