Selected by Rebecca Shatwell

Bob Levene's work investigates how images, objects and actions can create sound. Using both old and new technology in a playful way, she makes installations, performances and videos that explore how sound is experienced and communicated. Her practice involves an unconventional use of equipment, commenting on the failure and absurdity of communication technologies. Adopting scientific or anthropological methods, the technology not only documents the enquiry but also becomes part of the work.

'Experiments for Microphones' is a series of five short performances to camera, in which sound is explored through a variety of physical and environmental situations. 'Testing Microphones - 52s', is a futile attempt by the artist to count to ten. The microphone is set too high to reach, resulting in the voice disappearing between acoustic and amplified. In 'Spinning Hum - 2m55', she recorded her voice making a continuous hum on an old portable tape recorder, which is then played back and spun around.

'Handmade' is an object: a cymbal that is also a record. Using a vinyl-cutting machine the sound of a cymbal was cut like a record back onto a cymbal; embedding its own sound back onto itself.

Rebecca Shatwell is Curator at alt.gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Curator profile

Bob Levene, biography and artworks

May 2008