To coincide the current commission by Open Music Archive, Everything I Have Is Yours, which celebrates the music of 1952-1962, Salford Museum and Art Gallery is hosting a series of free and interactive workshop and events for the public to get get involved in.
Visual to Audio is a free workshop by musician and artist Ben McDonnell, inviting you to respond to visual scores of music inspired by the first ten years of the UK hit charts. During the workshop you will be invited to listen, respond and create new beats based on visual score sheets. All sounds produced will be edited together to create a brand new audio installation at Salford Museum and Art Gallery in September.
You do not need to be able to play an instrument to get involved, but this is a perfect session for a music enthusiast and if you have your own instrument you are more than welcome to bring it along!
This workshop is part of the current Together We Move Engagement Programme, supported by Arts Council England project grants, the University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery.
Date: Wednesday 24 July, 2 – 4pm
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery
Admission: Free, but booking required via Eventbrite.
Everything I Have Is Yours is an ambitious film and sound work by Eileen Simpson and Ben White (Open Music Archive) that looks back to the first decade of the UK pop charts (1952-62). Working with a group of older musicians – many of whom are the ‘original teenagers’ of the Greater Manchester music scene, now in their 70s and 80s – this film focuses on this diverse group as they re-engage with public-domain samples from the formative era of the ‘birth of pop’, and incorporate these timeless sounds into new musical creations. When the musicians play, they individually and collectively interact with digital technology, recalling archive sounds ripped from 1950s and early 1960s shellac and vinyl chart hits. As the group trigger these sounds from the past, the camera continuously tracks its way through the assembled musicians, echoing the circular loops of the music itself.
Everything I Have Is Yours has been commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Contemporary Art Society, University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery. An edition of the film will enter the University of Salford Art Collection.
To coincide with Everything I Have Is Yours, Castlefield Gallery is presenting Eileen Simpson and Ben White: Open Music Archive, the first UK survey show of the artists’ work from 14 June – 18 August 2019. The exhibition presents a selection of projects developed over the last ten years in which the artists explore the performative potential of the archive by reanimating copyright-expired archive material.