This article examines four artists who are currently influential in the Australian sound art and experimental music scenes. In interviews with Robin Fox, Anthony Pateras, Lloyd Barrett and Joel Stern, a picture emerges of a small, interconnected and vibrant Australian artistic community, fertile with cross-collaboration and significantly engaged with each others’ work …
Robin Fox, Footraum
All four artists examined in this article cite a strong commitment to performance. In varying degrees, all trained in western classical music before becoming interested in different types of sonic expression. Arguably, all share a commitment to what might be termed ‘pragmatic experimentation’, an experimentation which moves their work beyond what Fox calls the ‘game of nomenclature’ that tends to arbitrarily divide music (whether experimental or classical), from art (whether sonic or visual). Perhaps most importantly, these artists know each other; they have both collaborated in various permutations and appeared alongside each other in various Australian experimental arts festivals – illustrating both the small size and artistic fertility of the Australian crossover between sound art and experimental music.
Ben Eltham
Ben Eltham is based at the Centre for Policy Development, Sydney, and the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney.
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Five Creation Myths – Robin Fox: Myth 2 – Inharmonic from ANAT on Vimeo.
This content is sourced from the DVD which compliments the November 2009, ‘Arts of Sound’ issue of Art Monthly Australia, guest edited by Douglas Kahn
and co-presented by ANAT. This work is covered under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial Share Alike 2.5 BY-NC-SA licence creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/. Note – Please be aware the work may contain flashing and or flickering lights.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Australia.