Commission – Robin Bale2019-03-05T14:18:37+00:00

Robin Bale, Yet I Came After, 2018

About this work

Robin Bale has responded to BLED EDGE by Alastair MacLennan (EDGE 88).

The piece uses contemporary field recordings from the environs of the original work, BLED EDGE by Alastair MacLennan, which are combined with sections of an interview with the artist. This is interspersed with Bale’s meditations on the concept of shared memory, or even memory itself, in relation both to a deliberately evanescent form such as performance or such a slippery concept such as history, or “era”. This is pursued as and through the trope of a ghost, firstly generated by a misremembered description of BLED EDGE by a 1989 reviewer, secondly by persistent reports that the Clerkenwell site of the performance is haunted. The piece includes ironic quotation of a pop song popular during the period of EDGE 88 with echoing, repeated, quotes from MacLennan, Shakespeare and TS Eliot. It culminates in an awkward, late night street corner conversation with a sardonic ghost, voiced by the artist Nicola Woodham.
 
Voices
Alastair MacLennan  
Nicola Woodham  
Robin Bale
TS Eliot
 
Written, produced, composed and directed by Robin Bale
 

Robin Bale is a London-based poet/performer and sound artist. He makes improvised performances utilising verbal and non-verbal vocalisation and musical equipment, including self-built instruments. He also makes recordings that experiment with aural space and noise, creatively deploying studio technology to create sonic landscapes that reflect the fragmented and contested space of urban and exurban environments. His performances incorporate ritualised antagonism, the intonation of found texts and enigmatic phrases, historical trivia, grunts and howls and the pouring of Special Brew onto the floor as libation for the spirits of the dead. The texts are infested with sphinxes, ghosts and winos. These performances have often taken place in, and are responses to, what nowadays passes for public space.

www.robinbale.blogspot.com

Robin Bale, Yet I Came After, 2018

About this work

Robin Bale has responded to BLED EDGE by Alastair MacLennan (EDGE 88).

The piece uses contemporary field recordings from the environs of the original work, BLED EDGE by Alastair MacLennan, which are combined with sections of an interview with the artist. This is interspersed with Bale’s meditations on the concept of shared memory, or even memory itself, in relation both to a deliberately evanescent form such as performance or such a slippery concept such as history, or “era”. This is pursued as and through the trope of a ghost, firstly generated by a misremembered description of BLED EDGE by a 1989 reviewer, secondly by persistent reports that the Clerkenwell site of the performance is haunted. The piece includes ironic quotation of a pop song popular during the period of EDGE 88 with echoing, repeated, quotes from MacLennan, Shakespeare and TS Eliot. It culminates in an awkward, late night street corner conversation with a sardonic ghost, voiced by the artist Nicola Woodham.
 
Voices
Alastair MacLennan  
Nicola Woodham  
Robin Bale
TS Eliot
 
Written, produced, composed and directed by Robin Bale
 

Robin Bale is a London-based poet/performer and sound artist. He makes improvised performances utilising verbal and non-verbal vocalisation and musical equipment, including self-built instruments. He also makes recordings that experiment with aural space and noise, creatively deploying studio technology to create sonic landscapes that reflect the fragmented and contested space of urban and exurban environments. His performances incorporate ritualised antagonism, the intonation of found texts and enigmatic phrases, historical trivia, grunts and howls and the pouring of Special Brew onto the floor as libation for the spirits of the dead. The texts are infested with sphinxes, ghosts and winos. These performances have often taken place in, and are responses to, what nowadays passes for public space.

www.robinbale.blogspot.com