Beat had a chat with artist Shane McGrath about his offering Runthrough, located at Market Sportson Victoria St. Runthrough is a video installation of people running through banners emblazoned with arts slogans plus a series of filmed interventions around Melbourne. How did Runthrough come about? “I was inspired by sporting banners and the tradition of teams breaking through them,” answers McGrath. “Banners as object piqued my attention. They are lovingly built things made by fans, autonomous from sports clubs, as an outward show of support. It’s a fascinating idea; banners are made to withstand high winds while teams run through the banners onto the field. There are parallels with Japanese avant-garde with this work, as banners are direct references to objects used in the culture. I want to re-introduce them into a contemporary art context. I pitched the idea to Fringe as way of expressing the frustration I’ve felt with the tension between contemporary art and the everyday populace, who aren’t involved in art. The public can have a perception that contemporary art is highbrow, suspect that artists are trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, that there’s a different language used to talk about it. Then we hear a lot from artists about the money that’s spent on sport; sport can be seen as low culture, so I’m thinking about the overlap – what would happen if I tried to bridge the two cultures? What about a football banner emblazoned with contemporary art, with buzzwords and phrases? A modernist performance.”
McGrath says that Runthrough, sited as it’s in the window of Market Sports, looks like it belongs there. “You take a second glance,” he adds. “It’s a quite interesting visual parallel, art which references both sports culture and Yves Klein.
Another artist commissioned to produce a work for Uncommon Places is audio/computer-composer/ producer/chemistry researcher/coffee lover Vincent Giles. His work is (i) Bits & Pieces and (ii) Put Together to Present creating a very private experience for the listener – essentially it involves the purchase of a coffee at Auction Room café, but not just any coffee, it must be a filter coffee, and then you connect yourself via your phone to an audio experience which takes you both right out of and deeply within, the experience you’re already having of being in a café. Got that? Why not a latte? “I did a scientific analysis of the coffee beans they use for the filter coffee,” Giles explains. Of course. “The chemical structure of this type of coffee informed the audio piece, so that the menu reflects the experience. There are two pieces of this pseudo-installation, the first piece, Bits & Pieces is a sonic representation of the chemical data of coffee.”
We do love our coffee in Melbourne but is this not going to extremes? “I quite enjoy coffee myself,” says Giles. ”I’m just about to buy some beans right now.” To take to a lab, perhaps. Or run through a computer. Giles continues: “In the second half that sound is articulated rhythmically, and the rhythms are derived from that set of data. Put Together to Present includes a long selection of sounds inherent at Auction Room, randomly spaced, and played back, which create a heightened hyper-real listening experience. Occasionally you’ll hear a milk frother but it will be sonically much more invasive, it will sound really close. The whole thing works to enhance sonic awareness.” Coffee ain’t what it used to be.
BY COLETTE DALLIMORE
