serial consign

Last week, I spent some time working through the portfolio of my friend and peer Corwyn Lund. One of his recent projects resonates quite nicely with my interest in media and journalism. This past summer, Corwyn presented Microphone Bouquet Series at Seducing Down the Door, a group show at Mercer Union here in Toronto. The project uses the unique sculptural qualities of clusters of microphones as a springboard into a discussion on tragedy. An excerpt from Lund's statement on the project:

Clusters of microphones are a ubiquitous aspect of news conferences worldwide. Floral in form and color, each microphone appears to clamor toward the speaker like flowers toward the sun. As sculptural arrangements, they are the handiwork of television, radio, and print media reporters all vying for proximity to the head of state who is speaking.

Within the world of this project, each "bouquet" is a placeholder for the tragedy that has brought these recording devices together.

[corwyn lund / tehran, jan 14th, 2006 / microphone bouqet photo series]

This project was executed through altered photography and sculpture. The first image in this post, Tehran, Jan 14th, 2006 conveys the general strategy at play within the photographic portion of this project. Lund searched the archives of news bureaus and collected a series of press conference photographs in which microphone clusters figured prominently. An ersatz depth of field effect has been employed in these images to foreground each microphone cluster.

This work is quite effective at co-opting the everyday experience of consuming news and information. I can't recall being more compelled by images of a media-centric project since I fell in love with Helmut Smits' Photo Tip, an installation from 2004.

With the sculptural portion of this project, Lund created his own "idealized" microphone bouquet out of foam, aluminum, cable, audio jacks and paint. The resulting object is a stunning abstraction of the microphone assemblages explored in the photo-series.

If you'd like to learn more about Corwyn Lund's work be sure to take a look at the documentation of his MusicBox RevolvingDoor and Swingsite installations as well his Parlour of Twlight room at the Gladstone Hotel

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