Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed Drones (2016)

Saint Mark’s chapel in Kemptown has been throbbing for five days straight. That is what you get from this piece, a relentless pulse of skuzzy, kilowatt-heavy hum which envelops you. Where’s the band? You might ask, if you are keen on music of this persuasion. Well, they’ve left behind some eight unmanned guitars…

Photodiary: Whitstable Biennale 2014

Last Saturday I spent eight or so intense hours hot footing it around a coastal town in South East England in search of the many artworks which make up Whitstable Biennale. The coach dropped us at the Horsebridge Arts Centre, in which could be seen a wry excavation of 35-year-old television…

Chris Watson and Iain Pate, HRAFN; Conversations with Odin (2013)

Two myths converge in an evocative piece by a sound recordist and a producer. The first myth concerns the most powerful Norse god and the second myth could concern you. HRAFN will be staged in Kielder Forest, Northumberland, with support from the Forestry Commission. The artists reveal that Odin owned…

Kaffe Matthews, ‘You might come out of the water every time singing’ (2012)

“Okay, we’re 30m underwater on a ley line and we’re heading for some squid,” or words to that effect. Such is my greeting from artist Kaffe Matthews. My response is helpless excitement. I lie on my back on the shark platform and look up at the murky green light. You…

Janet Cardiff, The Forty Part Motet (2001)

When a gallery is a deconsecrated church and the artwork is a piece of religious music, walking in is a hair’s breadth from turning up for Sunday worship. It’s humbling, even humiliating. The early choral work, Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, is drawing people in off the street, nevertheless.…