Lament

installation of four inkjet prints (from digital scans of intaglio prints of inked records and watercolour), 1 metre x 1.5 metres each. This installation of four works, one per wall in a single room, was intended as a meditative memorial space in which to contemplate the relationship between sound and image. Each image is an intaglio imprint - a visual recording - of an actual object (a record). Forming a mandala like image, each print captures both the original vinyl 'pressing' and everytime that individual record was subsequently played, traces visible as distinctive grooves, scratches and lettering laid bare in ink. Accompanied by the sound of the songs printed, the show demonstrates the combination of different techniques (printmaking and photography), during a time of transition from analogue to digital media. The melancholy and nostalgia over this loss or obsolescence is heightened by the selection of songs, all made by musicians who died young. As well as continuing my research interest in musical cultures and technologies of obsolescence, the work explores the tension between the iconic and the everyday. It is also a contemporary archaeology of sorts, whereby I use art practice to make visible the layers of wear on the record, the affective experience of listening and other 'hidden' details.