STYX Projects is pleased to present contemporary artist, Rory Buckley. His first solo show in London, ‘741 MPH’, will create and explore audio visual compendiums.
‘741 MPH’ features ‘Sonic Rolling Ball Sculpture’ in the Interview Room. The fragility and intricacy of the piece explores a sense of the ethereal. Despite the complex physicality of the installation, it paradoxically simplifies and counters the idea of maximalism. Jean Baudriallard once spoke of the ‘simulation of something that never really existed’. Similarly, the pseudocomplexity of Buckley’s installation is simply a vehicle for the sound it produces.
‘Sonic Rolling Ball Sculpture’, preciously exhibited in the Southbank centre, has been recreated in the alternative environment of the interview room. Made using a mix of found and re-appropriated materials such as vacuum tubing and vinyl records. The sculpture is powered by a Technics 1210 turntable which turns an Archimedes Screw which carries ball bearings into the tray where they are randomly distributed to different instruments which have been fused with amplified music stands. The resulting interactions between the two create unique compositions. The sounds of the balls traversing the installation resonate throughout the space.
Buckley re-appropriates vinyl records, cutting, melting and shaping them to create new forms. Time and process form the narrative of the work. The journey of the balls is recorded in a series of sounds and vibrations. The tracks along which the balls travels are made from individually moulded vinyl records: a process which is both speedy and protracted.
Buckley’s practice has developed from his interest in plunderphonics; the creation of sound collages. Each component is informed by a sense of hyper-realism and explores the semantics of materials and their consequent representation in sound. Inspired by theme parks and amusement arcades, Buckley draws upon the relationship between the player and the machine. This hypnotic observance is captured in ‘741 MPH’.
The video collage piece ‚Nausea‘ installed in the four cells, is based on existential narrative themes using clips from films in the compendium ‚1001 movies you must see before you die‘.
Rory Buckley studied Sound Art and Design at the London College of Communication. Previous shows include ’Geo Piano’ in Somerset and Brixton and ‘Brain Study’; a solo performance in ‘The Marlborough’ in Camberwell. He has also exhibited as part of the ‘Ether Festival’ in the Royal Festival Hall in 2010. He currently lives and works in London.