ARTISTS Vicky Browne; Philip Dadson; Robin Fox; Marco Fusinato; Michael Graeve; Brent Grayburn; David Haines and Joyce Hinterding; Eugene Hansen, Jenny Gilliam, and Dr Kron; Michael Morley; Kusum Normoyle; Thembi Soddell; Torben Tilly and Robin Watkins CURATORS Caleb Kelly, Aaron Kreisler ORGANISER Dunedin Public Art Gallery OTHER VENUE Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 7 July–11 November 2012 PUBLICATION Among the Machines/Sound Full; publisher Dunedin Public Art Gallery; texts Sue Ballard, Caleb Kelly, Aaron Kriesler
Sound Full showcases sixteen Australasian artists who use sound as a material. It insists that every work of art engages a multimodal sense experience. Even in its absence, sound is ever present. Art is always ‘sound full’. The show encourages us to ‘listen’ to art in its totality, and acknowledges the important role sound plays in contemporary art. Sound Full includes film, painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and performance. Many works offer the experience of pure sound. Kusum Normoyle's performances mix piercing vocals with microphone feedback in an aural assault on the senses. She performs live at the opening, and also exhibits video works. Australian sound artist and electroacoustic composer Thembi Soddell’s Window (2008) negates sound and the other senses. It is a blacked out, noise-cancelling listening booth, which clears the senses in order to hear one of Soddell’s own compositions. Many of the artists—including Marco Fusinato, Torben Tilly, and Michael Morley—are also musicians.
