Future Eclipse (broadcast), 2023 Brass, surface transducer, stereo, radio receiver
In Dane Mitchell’s Future Eclipse (transmission), a large brass discone antenna suspended above the Piazza functions as an FM radio station, producing a field of transmission that stretches beyond the visible — entering the FM ‘narrowcasting’ bandwidth as a transmitted radio signal. Spreading itself thin and wide across the airwaves, the transmission can be heard through an accompanying pair of brass sculptural discs, which function as a receiver.
The 6-hour broadcast was produced by Dane Mitchell in collaboration with seminal Japanese composer and musician Keiji Haino. The composition is devised from one list among the hundreds built by Mitchell for his ongoing project Post hoc, which is made up of unfathomably long spoken word lists which call up vanishings, extinctions and disappearances. The list broadcast here, titled Future Solar Eclipses, reads the dates and times when the Sun will be eclipsed over the next 3000 years.
Keiji Haino’s percussive accompaniment is performed on a Polygonola, a ‘two dimensional’ instrument which enfolds and at times subsumes the reading of the list. Throughout the composition, his summoning of vibrations — in theory and practice — seek to both incapacitate and complicate the logic of list making, whilst ratcheting up the anxiety eclipses once caused.
Artist Biographies
Dane Mitchell (1976) was Aotearoa New Zealand’s representative at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. He has presented solo exhibitions at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; daadgalerie, Berlin, Germany; Institut D’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France; Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand; Auckland Art Gallery, Aotearoa/New Zealand; amongst many others.
He has participated in a number of biennales, including Venice Biennale; Biennale of Sydney; Liverpool Biennial; Bangkok Biennale; Gwangju Biennale; Singapore Biennale; Thailand Biennale; Ljubljana Biennale, and more.
Dane Mitchell is lecturer at VCA, University of Melbourne and is represented by The Renshaws (AUS) & Christopher Grimes (US).
Keiji Haino (1952) is a Japanese musician whose work has included free improvisation, noise, percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone music. He has been active since the 1970s and is regarded as one of the most seminal experimental musicians of Japan, if not his generation. He has released over twenty-two solo studio albums and collaborated with countless musicians and composers, including Tony Conrad, Toru Takemitsu, John Zorn, Jim O’Rourke, Merzbow and Faust.
Represented by The Renshaws’ (Meanjin/Brisbane), Booth E4.
Dane Mitchell & Keiji Haino, Future Eclipse (transmission), 2023, brass, plated aluminium, Perspex, electronics, radio transmitter, coaxial cable 3410mm dia x 8300mm (L) & Dane Mitchell & Keiji Haino, Future Eclipse (broadcast), 2023, Brass, surface transducer, stereo, radio receiver, 120mm dia.
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