Audible Forces, 2013-2014

Inspired by Max Eastley's Aeolian researches, Audible Forces was a touring exhibition organised by a collaboration between Oxford Contemporary Music, The Sonic Arts Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University and Without Walls. This was an outdoor exhibition of seven artists who all created artworks using the wind to produce sound. The exhibition toured for two years (2013-2014) and went to Brighton Festival, Norfolk & Norwich, Salisbury, Greenwich & Docklands, Stockton, Kendal Lakes Alive, Salford and Stoke-on-Trent. The artists were: Mark Anderson, Mike Blow, Jony Easterby, Max Eastley, Dan Fox, Cathy Hinde and Nathaniel Mann.

 

http://www.audibleforces.blogspot.co.uk/

Audiograft Festival 2013, Oxford

This was a prototype and technical test for a design to be used for a large national touring exhibition (Audible Forces) that started that same year. The festival drew many hundreds of people but the significance for Max Eastley was the ability to discuss technical aspects of the design with production staff from the Oxford Contemporary Music organisation - one of the key organisers of the subsequent touring exhibition.

 

http://consumerwaste.org.uk/audiograft/exhibitions.html

David Toop & Max Eastley in Conversation at the Pitt Rivers Museum (24-11-2012)

Toop/Eastley in conversation.

David Toop and Max Eastley in Conversation at the Pitt Rivers Museum on 24th November 2012. David and Max gave the keynote presentation to complete our 'Making Sound Objects' one day British Forum for Ethnomusicology Conference. Beginning with sounds from their 1994 album 'Buried Dreams', and ranging through their engagement with sound and instruments at the Pitt RIvers Museum, the history of sound recording, and the role of sound in societies, their conversation was intended expand the dialogue between sound theorists, sound practitioners, and ethnomusicologists.

‘Writtle Calling’, Writtle Radio, Essex

Writtle Calling/2 Emma Toc was a collaborative work, in which Artists, writers, scientists and musicians were invited to make content for a temporary radio station broadcasting from an historic radio site. They were asked to respond to notions of broadcasting and communication and to a series of ideas. The station was active for 1 week. Max Eastley installed four Aeolian harps on the Aerial of the Radio Station. The sounds produced by the wind on the harps were transmitted to the control room and broadcast from 12 midday to 6pm each day. At 6pm other Artists' broadcasts began. It became evident from the evening broadcasts that the installation could also be heard acoustically as the radio station building acted as a resonator for the installation.

 

 

More information on the project can be found here:

http://www.architecturetoday.co.uk/?p=25573

A flier detailing the Writtle Radio project:

‘Gone With the Wind’, Raven Row, Jun-Jul 2011

Raven Row Gallery is housed in two 18th century buildings. Max Eastley built an aeolian installation on the roof of the gallery and worked with engineer Dave Hunt to develop a means by which the sounds produced by the wind on the aeolian devices could be transmitted twelve meters down into the rooms in which Max was exhibiting a number of indoor sound installations. The external sounds were mixed together with the sounds from the indoor installations.

Max did a solo performance in the gallery playing his unique instrument, The Arc (developed from an aeolian device), together with an interior installation and a live feed from the aeolian installation on the roof.

Recording of roof installation channeled down into the building

Aeolian Device, Audiograft Festival 2011

This aeolian device was created by Max Eastley for Audiograft 2011. Set in the grounds of the Richard Hamilton Building at Oxford Brookes, it was created from strands of latex which were activated by the activity of the wind in the area. The device remained in place for several weeks, until the latex perished and it no longer worked.