cardiograph- paul murnaghan/slavek kwi exhibition cologne 6th june

Cardiograph is an exhibition of sound works opening at the Rachel Haferkamp gallery, Cologne, on Friday the 6th of June http://www.rachelhaferkamp.de/ .
These installations comprise of three different pieces using digital technology as a tool to express human emotion through famialiar tactile interfaces. These works are by Paul Murnaghan and Slavek Kwi, one being a collaboration.Paul Murnaghan is an artist / curator and Artistic Director of the 5th (www.5th.ie) Gallery in Dublin, his work primarily deals with the examination of human emotion realised through digital means. Murnaghan is a cross - discipline artist who has exhibited his soundworks throughout Europe and America.

Slavek Kwi was born in the Czech Republic. He is now based in Ireland. He began as a visually-based artist, who became increasingly interested in sound and/in space. He has used natural acoustics, found sound, recorded sound and computer generated sound structures.
He has had numerous exhibitions and performances throughout Europe and Northern America


The Soundinstallations:

Mp3 abode
is a sound-based project which began in Arthouse in Dublin in November 2000, it involves a range of artists / participants from around the world. A request was sent out across the Internet inviting people to send an MP3 file of their favorite (or most hated) bite of sound, one that would evoke a personal strong emotion. When Murnaghan had received sufficient response he disguised a modern keyboard in a 120-year-old upright piano, It’s worn appearance is empathic with its contents. An emotion was attached to each note and information as to the time, place and feeling associated with each sample was left in view. The piano interface is used to lend familiarity and to eradicate the cold computer interface. Visitors to the building are invited to play this collection of mp3’s, mixing a plethora of memories from around the world into moments of sound and interaction unique to the user .

Artists included: Marjetica Portc, Daniel Figgis, Karl Burke , Aisling O’Beirn and Slavek Kwi.
http://www.stunned.org/abode/a.htm & http://www.rte.ie/arts/2000/1207/mp3.html


Requiem for a fly',
Here Murnaghan explored one of the more prominent emotions that occurred in ‘mp3 abode’, the feeling of loss. The work invites you to sit into mourning chairs and pay respects to a dead fly laid to rest in his personal mausoleum. Using digital technology, the sounds of flies were manipulated to create different tones and resonance similar to the groupings in an orchestra, they were constructed into a musical arrangement of three movements. Murnaghan invited the artist Slavek Kwi to collaborate on this piece, they worked separately at first, Kwi wrote the introduction, Murnaghan the second part and they worked together on the third.
There is humor in this work as there can be in death, a natural protective device and an invitation to sit and take part, it questions how / who we mourn and what we invest in death. Again the digital technology is not in evidence but it is crucial in the way that the sound is mixed, the sub-bass vibrates through you in the more emotional parts as the sub-bass speakers are built into the chairs.


"Helen’s Music Box”

Membranes of speakers are used as mechanical vibrating interface to generate other layers and additional acoustic transformations of original sounds diffused from pre-recorded cd. Left channel leads to low frequency response speaker with glass-marble and pearls, right channel leads to full-range little speaker with attached sheet of alluminium foil as resonator. Original sounds used in composition are generated from recordings of old music boxes. The potential of sounds is further explored by computer manipulations.