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Stephen Cornford and the rethinking of the everyday.
Take a browseabout and come back. Right here.
I’ve been following Stephen Cornford’s work off and on for the past year or so and consider his ideas to be terrifically engaging. Easy on the eyes, too. Considering the scope of the work involved in a given project, I’ve come to the conclusion that the musical outcomes of Cornford’s installations have no purchase beyond true minimalism. The results are often a simple sequence of looping, drones, or periodic (or aperiodic) transients of sound. Those (like me) lacking the opportunity to get physically close to the work, will settle for the detached wonders of netvideo — fortunately, the installations are filmed in such a way as to offer a sense of intimacy.
Cornford’s foremost a sculptor, interested “in the relationship between the physical and spatial attributes of sounding objects, musical instruments and audio technologies and their acoustic properties or timbral characteristics.” They’re beautiful works, with or without the sound, though I’d rate the sound quite highly, and of course crucial to the individual pieces as respective wholes. Obvious consideration has gone into materials that will 1) emit appealing, often unusual, sound, and 2) reflect/enhance the visual aspects in adding a second sensory dimension in the appreciating of the object.
His recent work includes the refining of a “Cassette Delay” array, which, when operated, outputs to surround-sound. I’d love to see the schematic for this one, which incorporates seven tape assemblies, working in an infinite loop, recording the array’s own pre-recorded audio, playback, simultaneous re-recording of the source, playback, recording, playb…
My personal favorite happens to be the newest project, which involves turntables and “kinetic objects”. The sequencing of the video/audio is very good, and can be seen HERE. Additionally, not to miss are the piano projects.
Inspiring, lovely stuff. I’ve spent collective hours looking around and listening.
Stephen shows at festivals and galleries and whatnot throughout Europe with some regularity.
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This is refreshing (and a bit surprising) to read. I have also enjoyed hearing Stephen’s approach to a tactile-less piano music, good music enhanced by the photos on his web site.
Why surprising?
Derek, had you ever heard of Stephen Cornford prior to this entry? He has no proper releases out, performs in a few venues around Devon, and maintains a very quiet internet presence. Hence, surprised he’s on the Bags radar. Pleasantly so, if that’s not clear.
I hadn’t as he doesn’t really fall within my sphere of interest. Al (being an ace sonar man, after all) has a much wider circumference. Thanks for clarifying.