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POWER:
Miners, Missiles and Monarchy.
The artist Tracey Moberly has created a unique series of what she calls
“Voice Portraits”, sonograms on canvas using selected recording from
Tony Benn’s most famous speeches and his diaries. They will celebrate
the life and work of Tony Benn, his 80th birthday and his years in
politics.
Whilst Election fever
takes hold these “Voice portraits” reassert the Political pertinence and
contemporary relevance of Tony Benn's speeches today.
Whilst the paintings can
be seen in the gallery the selected speeches covering Miners, Missiles
and Monarchy will be relayed through speakers onto the streets.
TERRY DUFFY 2005 |
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Tony Benn has since a
child preferred the oral tradition, learning from listening and
watching rather than reading. He is a man who talks the language of the
young, and who gave up the Commons to devote more time to politics.
Sonograms have been used
for decades by scientists involved in audio analysis, such as voice
recognition, bird song etc but within this unique exhibition she uses
the same technique to capture her favourite key moments from his words
and renders them as sonic visual artworks. The art works are highly
colourful and visually powerful in form and meaning.
The former Labour MP, a former Secretary of State, sat alone
late each night for over 30 years and dictated onto tape his account of
the daily events at the heart of government. Tracey has selected three
quotes which she views as having multiple meanings and being of great
relevance today. The title of the exhibition is POWER (fitting for the
once Minister for Energy): a duality runs concurrently on the word
power. The canvases are titled Missiles, Miners and Monarchy, covering
nuclear power, coal and oil.
She says of the 'Miners' canvas: "I am STILL witnessing the
decimation of the mining community into which I was born and schooled.
On visits home the social and economic decline of a once thriving town
are constantly in my thoughts as are a group of people who then held
such great POWER, the Conservative Party, who tore up my nuclear
family." she further adds: "When an area established over generations is
stripped of it's industrial life-force, the migration of its people
becomes like a slow wind catching disintegrating dust from the burnt out
embers, where once a great fire soared"
The multiple meanings within the works of 'Missiles' and 'Monarchy' are
similarly extremely strong in their message, which clearly resonates
through contemporary concerns such as Iraq and the future of our
Constitution.
THE
ARTIST:
Tracey Moberley, is a well established political artist, her work has
taken on a range of guises, from stopping billboard advertising
campaigns such as the 1990's 'Club18-30' billboard campaign to her use
of nuclear missiles, an extreme anti drugs poster campaign used by
police in the North to health art works on HIV and HVC in silver and a
card pack used in Poland, Romania, England and France.
Following her surprise at the ease of being able to borrow a nuclear
missile, she wanted to see how far she could take it within her
possession. She drove from Ellesmere Port through Manchester and down to
London, with a large section of a fire-streak air to air missiles
sticking out of the back of an ex-army Falklands Chevy. Even a twenty
mile cruise of the M1 down the hard shoulder rose no suspicion, nor did
the drive through Central London! Perplexed, upon her arrival to the
Shoreditch area of East London she offered it to a group of fifty
visiting Russian artist musicians {as a peace offering} on a creative
stay in the area, as a welcoming present.
She has a book published of anagrammatical poems based on the beautiful
names of the cold war nuclear warheads, such as Indigo Hammer, Orange
Herald, Red Snow etc and has exhibited under an anagram of one nuclear
warhead as Doria Hemming, both in the Uk and Internationally. One of her
collaborations with Bill Drummond saw her sending 1,000 nuclear-inscripted
balloons off into the ether with a planting kit attached containing
opium poppy seeds as a protest against the war and the consequent
abundance of Afghanistan opium that saw its way to multiply tenfold the
availability of Heroin on the British streets.
One of her greatest stunts was when she planted Red Square in Moscow
with red corn poppy seeds, a symbol of peace. She was amazed that the
guards' guns were pulled on her only when a saxophanist started his
accompaniment outside Lenin’s tomb.
Recently she has been working with Mark Thomas and both have taken a
look at Coca Cola's Nazi advertising past. They curated a show which
involved over 500 artists and musicians, probing into different ethics
of the company. The exhibition toured several London galleries, then
Tracey and Mark took the exhibition over to Colombia where 8 union
workers were killed linked to the company, they worked closely with the
Colombian union Sinantrinal. The exhibition also involved the Kerala
area of India where the company were depleting the water table causing
drought and significant other problems to the local farmers in the area.
A section of this exhibition is running now in Hackney East London
Tracey hosts and produces a radio show with husband Jonathan, on which
Tony Benn has appeared and prompted her first exhibition on his words.
This was part of the SELLOUT exhibition (with Gavin Turk, Bill Drummond
and others), which was well received and sold out in the first five
minutes. The radio show is called 'The Late Late Breakfast Show' on
resonance 104.4fm Fridays between 12-1pm archives are on http://www.foundry.tv
and http://www.sanderswood.com. She has just started another show with
Bill Drummond.
For this new body of work she has used extracts from Tony Benn's diary
tapes. The exhibition consists of three large canvases depicting voice
portraits or sonograms with a 24 hour loop audio tape running on Tony
Benn's diaries and other audio work outside the gallery, which is in the
densely populated nightlife economy of Shoreditch. The artist has chosen
random quotes specifically for her interest and the topicality of what
was then and is now... the quotes are:
Missiles:
1. "... it did really raise the question of whether nuclear power
was compatible with civil liberties what was the price we were being
asked to pay in democratic rights as a result of having nuclear power
..."
Miners:
2. "I think one of the worst parts of it for me was the treatment
of the miners defending their communities and their work and a basic
national interest - coal
Monarchy:
3. "The feudal imposition on the whole structure means that the
workers are still left [and it's a disgrace that a Labour Government
should allow this to happen] are still left as natives and barbarians
who can be greeted but kept at distance."
All three quotes come from diary entries on power sources 1. Nuclear
power 2. Coal 3. North Sea Oil. Tracey has used the quotes injecting a
double or triple meaning, subjects which are highly topical today and
within the last couple of years
Missiles and nuclear power looks at the campaign for nuclear
disarmament, it brings in the recent Iraqi war, picks up on tensions
between Pakistan and India, focuses on North Korea Even though speaking
on nuclear power and Wind scale, I feel that the first quote will take
the viewer of the sonogram into the same issues of now and mental
debates within recent news items. Nuclear power - the nuclear war head -
the recent war and reasoning around the need for global disarmament.
Within this is also the Power struggle of different nations, both
politically and religiously
The miners strike is very close to my heart: I have personally lived
through the decimation of a mining community (and am still witnessing
it). The social as well as the economic state that is 2005 and the
social decay of the towns and villages that lost their industries. The
Power that a Government had over so many people obliterating the nuclear
family. The decimation seems more prolific now in the health service
with the pneumonoconiosis and emphysema sufferers that litter the
valleys' hospital wards with oxygen canisters and masks, needed to
assist help their breathing. Currently, but on a smaller scale the
Longbridge workers are embarking on the downward journey that the miners
began 20 years ago.
The monarchy quote comes from The North sea Oil being brought on shore
in Scotland. Again I see the word power working in a few different ways.
The quote comes from the celebration of a power source and the workers,
but also looks at the power of the monarchy and all it represents. Again
very topical with the changes in laws occurring at the moment with the
monarchy and their use of the human rights law. I cannot understand how
this is happening, especially as in the not too distant past Edward
abdicated as he couldn't marry a divorcee and went to live near their
friends Mosley and Mitford in Paris.
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