The the voice as a narrative tool (often obscure) and the use of sound to animate installations and sound as a by-product of a mechanical installation (as in the case of Christian Boltanski in the French Pavilion) was obvious across the ILLUMInations exhibition and in the national pavilions.
The Taiwan Pavilion dealt solely with sound. Their palazzo right next to San Marco included a 'Sound Library Bar' where iPads held sound archives of Taiwan's social history.
For me this work, much of which featured bands and musicians as opposed to field recordings, brought up some intriguing questions around cultural identity and aesthetics and how value judgements might be rooted in cultural expectations and understanding.
Haroon Mirza (ILLUMI
nations exhibitions in the Giardini and Arsenale)
Haroon Mirza connects the seemingly disparate objects in his work through rhythm, drawing a relationship between the analogue and the digital, the secular and the religious.
His work, ‘Sick’ (2011) nestled into a right-angle of Monika Sosnowska’s para-pavilion, captures an essence of a 1990s teenage boys bedroom (coated MDF, speakers, strips of red lights) whilst simultaneously constructing the palpable tension from the crowds of people flashing across the glass screen beneath the MDF.
I have written more about Haroon's work in both venues for the Northern Art Prize blog
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla (US Pavilion)
Sound was used to its maximum potential, possibly inadvertently, by the now infamous ‘Track and Field’ outside the US Pavilion.
Whilst in the presence of three charred tree trunks in the Finnish Pavilion I thought a large group of birds were tweeting incredibly loudly outside and went to investigate.
In fact an Olympic runner was running on a treadmill on top of an upside-down tank, his motion turning the tracks so that the military goliath looked like an overturned beetle desperately trying to right itself.
Temporal Taxonomy (Cyprus Pavilion)
This sense of the frustrated and the inverted was also used by American born Cypriot Elizabeth Hoak-Doering, in the understated yet cohesive Cyprus Pavilion.
Her kinetic sculptures are triggered by the visitor’s presence - hanging wardrobes, tables and beds make beautiful pencil marks on paper that resemble automatic drawings.
The sound of the creaking objects contrasts directly with the delicate scratching of the pencil on paper, creating a sense of impending fragility despite the hefty physical presence of the protagonist objects.
WATCH: Videos from the 54th Venice Biennale
The US Pavilion on the Biennale Channel
Haroon Mirza winning the Silver Lion on the Biennale Channel
Read more:
EDITOR'S BLOG: The Sculptural Object
EDITOR'S BLOG: The Stage is Set
EDITOR'S BLOG: Video as Communal Memory
LINKS
Christian Boltanski, 'Chance': www.boltanski-chance.com
Taiwan Pavilion: www.tfam.museum
Haroon Mirza: www.clickfolio.com/haroon
US Pavilion: www.imamuseum.org/venice
Cyprus Pavilion: www.cyprusinvenice.org
