Graduated from
Sheffield Hallam University
Selected by Meriel Herbert
The
Listening Room, 2003
Sound
and context have become increasingly important in the work
of emerging artist Neil Webb. Often pieces evolve through a
process of recording sounds from a buildings ignored
systems, these are then edited and mixed into multi-channel
tracks, which are then played back into the same building.
His two most recent audio installations were in response to
the now defunct Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield.
Invisible Resonance was designed as a complete antithesis
to the pop music environment. Using noises from the surface
vibrations of the building -such as the air conditioning-
mixed with sounds from a computer-generated grand piano, he
created a complex final audio soundscape.
The listener could hear this through specially designed
glass exciters attached to the walls of a glass room
overlooking the city. This technology allowed the walls of
the room to vibrate and act as speakers. The audience were
invited to sit in the space, relax and contemplate the
scene outside. My Personal Pop Museum was made for the
upstairs bar in the Centre and references the artists own
memories of, and tastes in, pop music. As visitors order a
round of drinks at the bar, they hear small sequences of
music and voice-overs from Neils Radio show floating above
their heads.
Neil is engaged in an ongoing project titled Bocman,
consisting of audio events and the release of soundtracks,
his CD Somewhere Nowhere has just been released on the
independent label Audiolaceration. The artist is also a
founder member of the group HOST, which in addition to
producing group exhibitions of the artists individual
works, invites fellow artists to make new works on specific
themes for alternative spaces. Host4: Cinema is the latest
of these projects, where thirty-six artists made pieces for
the Side Cinema in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Neil has just
completed his M.A. in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam
University and has been selected for a residency in
Tuttlingen, Germany, from July to September 2005.
(Meriel Herbert,
2005)
The article was originally commissioned for the Axis Web
site.
www.axisweb.org/grCVFU.aspx?SELECTIONID=15351