Diamonds and Rust, performance excerpt, Goldsmiths CCA, July 2022 by Freya Dooley published on 2022-08-22T15:53:35Z Performance, Goldsmiths CCA, London July 24 2022 Six-channel sound installation and live reading (Full work 40 mins) Goldsmiths CCA commissioned Diamonds and Rust, a new live performance within the context of Virginia Overton’s exhibition Animal Magnetism. The performance combined multi-channel sound installation with spoken narrative text, moving around and against Overton’s architectural and sculptural works in the basement of the CCA building. Encompassing spoken voice and live-mixed musical composition, Diamonds and Rust was structured around a monologue about function, replaceability and incompatible value systems within a precarious working environment. Across the 40 minute sprawling soundtrack, a series of scenes are narrated in which the protagonist, Jane, moves through the cyclical rhythm of a finding and maintaining a generic office job. Jane navigates states of usefulness and dysfunction, frequenting increasingly necessary cigarette breaks with a growing group of colleagues during which no-one, except Mark, actually smokes. The sound composition encompasses manipulations of live and recorded voice, field recordings and samples which respond to the surfaces, substances and textures of the exhibition, elaborating on broader themes of visibility, effort, and futile attempts at reclaimed time. Industrial chimings, woody clunks and vocal rhythms - with nods to electronic musical influences - create repetitive grinds and aggregated beats interrupted by brief uplifts and moments of synchronicity. Features the voices and improvisations of Jon Ruddick, Sam Hasler, Alice Burrows, Emma Daman Thomas, Chapter Choir and Richard Bowers. It also feature’s two electronically dictated quotes from the book Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resitance by Brandon Labelle (pub. Goldsmiths Press, 2020) about music/musak’s effect on the psychology and behaviour of the worker. With thanks to Jon Ruddick and Shift, Cardiff Photos by Guillermo Moreno Mirallas
