Sunday 22 May 2011

Project Object - Disco Groove

Here are some installation imagery of the groove exhibition at Oriel Myrddin's project object exhibition.

Although i'm familiar with the gallery, it was still quite a shock to see that when the gallery is emptied of art it is a much larger space than it looks (time to go back and get another 70 records I thought). As well as being spacious, it has high walls and beautiful soft daylight. The exhibition ended up with around 200+ records, a film on a monitor, some archival images of the original production of these Welsh language records, a coal covered record by Jonathan Anderson, a dansette record player (kindly lent by JakeWhittaker); on which the staff and public played any records they wanted to listen to.... and finally the coup d'état — a rotating disco ball.

On Friday, May 13th we held an event at the gallery in the form of a disco — playing a 3 hour set of these records with some audio samples taken from my collection of snippets from films / tv etc. To give the event a contemporary musical presence we invited Matt who is a DJ and owner of the wonderful independent record shop in Carmarthen the Tangled Parrot, and his friend Iwan, a great sound engineer to put together a 45 min set which gave their own interpretation of what this genre of music means to them. This contemporary mix helped to offset any retro nostalgia of my own playlist. It was a fun evening, with lots of goodwill and warmth with around 60 people of all ages and backgrounds turning up, including David Alston, the Head of the Arts Council of Wales. The records / installation and music became a focal point, a source of communal gathering to celebrate music and community.


here is a link to Matt and Iwan's mix - check it out...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13347325/01%20Cymru_%20Oriel%20Myrddin%20Mix%2013_5_2011.mp3











here is a link to expressionist video footage shot by Joehari Lee of the event


oriel myrddin link to the event


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