Luke Munn

pepper spray, arc gesture
Kaleidoskop Galerie Berlin, 2011

custom software
2011

“like the mythical metamorphosis artist you can – bound by nothing, not your own body, your name, your identity or your sex – create another identity at any time’
Hartmut Böhme, On the Theology of Telepresence

In this incarnation, scripts locate and follow the user’s face, camouflaging and mutating identifiers such as eyes and lips with white noise or blurring, glitches or erasure. In this way, the face is only ‘recognized’ by the internal logic of the software, which triggers one of several versions of anonymity, a collection of erased portraits playing out in real-time.

Video Playlist

Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin, Germany
8 – Oct 1 2011

In 2003, a US trading firm went bust in 17 seconds after an employee accidentally turned on a trading algorithm, one of those high-speed computer programmes that buys and sells shares automatically in fractions of a second.
-Anthony Hilton, The Evening Standard

One of Charcot’s colleagues, a Dr. Baraduc, had photographed his son holding a dead pheasant which, when processed, appeared veiled. He decided that visible external light was in fact superfluous, and set his camera above the body of a sleeping abbot and caught a black cloud, the aura of his nightmare.
-Brian Catling, ‘Mugfaker’ lecture/performance

Playback
audio tape, steel
2011, 200 x 350 cm

Untitled (Channeling)
radio electronics, feathers, human hair, water, rubber, glass, plastic
2011, 29 x 15 x 13.8 cm

Side A, Side B
designated spaces, listener
2011, Dimensions and duration variable

Working Drawings (Tracked and Traced)
Reading Twitter, Editing an image, Checking E-mail, Google Maps
custom software, laser prints
2011, 21 x 29.7 cm

Spiritual Experiences
content from internet, custom software, generated book
2011, 14.8 x 21 cm, 200 pages

Barricade Blanket
woven barrier tape, string
2011, 180 x 140 cm

Barricade Remixed
live performance in public space (off-site) 

light, shadow
Causey Contemporary Brooklyn, 2011

In this performative work, half the light from the projector is blocked by the film operator. In doing so, light is activated not simply as a broadcast or transmission medium, but a solid object with dimensions, properties, and a presence of its own.

breath, plastic bags
2011

The work is comprised of the artist’s breath captured during a 5 minute time period.

Breath is typically regarded as the life-force of the body, the medium which enables critical functions to continue and which varies according to the level of energy expenditure. Forming the main material in this piece, breath is simultaneously a precious commodity and the equivalent of doing ‘nothing’. The piece returns to the original notion of work as energy expended, interrogating the nature of artistic production and the concepts of efficiency and functionalism which are so closely associated with it.

26 minute sound work
Radia Network: Resonance fm London, CKUT Montreal, free104point9 New York, Orange Vienna, XL Air Brussels, Radio One New Zealand, and others
2011

Mark No. 76344794: “the sound of a brass bell tuned to the pitch D, but with an overtone of D-sharp, struck nine times at a brisk tempo, with the final tone allowed to ring until the sound decays naturally. The rhythmic pattern is eight 16th notes and a quarter note; the total duration, from the striking of the first tone to the end of the decay on the final one, is just over 3 seconds.” Owners of Record: NYSE GROUP, INC.

Taking it’s cues from the long-duration film of the same name, this work takes a 2 second audiomark registered by the New York Stock Exchange and slows it drastically to 28 minutes. The opening bell and energetic trader shouts are brought to a standstill and become instead a dirge of white noise and ringing drones which replace motivation with malaise.

memories, sounds
2011

Sounding Memory is a project which dialogues with a series of acoustic recollections. Participants are asked to recall a sound that made a substantial impression on them, describing this sonic memory in their own words. The artist uses a mixture of found sounds and recordings to sculpt a sonic response. These recollections and their audio responses are continually collected and posted online, forming a dialogue over the course of a month.

soundingmemory.com

ink, drumsticks, drums
2011

Rhythms are inked indelibly onto paper and snareheads in this series, motions and gestures of drumming creating ‘beat drawings’. Drum sticks were coated in ink, while the artist played rock, pop, marching and world rhythms on a standard kit. The result is a disinterested painting, a visual output from focusing on a sonic pattern. Each slap, hit and strike, normally lost in the passing acoustic moment, is recorded, not on tape, but through slashes and explosions of ink.

score (triptych) for bodies and space
2010

Three site-specific works for J. Damron’s Bivouac Projects, where pieces are performed in various locations throughout the Great Basin area of the U.S.

“Last Dark Sky”
Make preparations such that a late night campsite has only one light source remaining (e.g. fire). Stare at light source, then quickly put out, while making as much noise as necessary. Quickly shift focus and stare at sky, while remaining as motionless and still as possible. Piece may end anytime after performer’s pupils have adjusted fully to this darkness.

Triptych for Great Basin score
Additional documentation at Bivouac Projects

collected objects, participatory group performance
2010

In this site-specific project for Galerie R31, 100 objects were collected from the streets of Reuterkiez and made available to the audience on opening night to activate sonically with hits, scrapes, breath, playback devices, and other gestures. The result was a cacophony of sound unique to the area – an ever changing mashup of stone scrapings, bottle tones, turkish pop cassettes, the flutterings of newspapers and flower wrappings, and more.

The Weightless Object

participatory project, sounds, software
2010

In this project, members of online arts community The Big Idea were asked to contribute a recording of the room they work or live in. These audio streams were brought together in an interface, forming a fluctuating sonic space – a combination of concrete floors, motorway ambience, conversation snippets and echoic reflections which is constantly shifting. Beachhouses overlap with bedroom studios, a recording shed rises up to appear in the middle of a nature museum, before dissolving once again into silence.

Residency & Project page

sound recordings, custom software
2010

Two iconic streets from Auckland and Berlin were sonified and mapped in this web-based project, allowing users to explore the echoes and architecture of two spaces at once. Karangahape Road in New Zealand is a buzzing blend of pacifica and partygoers, drag-queens and boy racers, while the snow and concrete of Kottbusser Damm is punctuated by snippets of conversation, U-Bahn announcements, and Turkish markets. The interface allows users to ‘walk’ alongside or skip through these moments. Users can also mix the networked spaces together – isolating or blending them. A personal, celebratory response to ‘immobility’ by Luke Munn and Sam Hamilton, supported and made possible by Aotearoa Digital Arts as part of the ElectroSmog Festival.