Appeal for two hundred cyclists to take part in new sound installation in London

This is an appeal to cyclists who would like to take part in a new sound work at Gillett Square, Dalston, London E8 on Sunday 6th December between 12:00 noon and 9:00pm. You must be reasonably fit and able to cycle non-stop in 5 minute bursts.

Invisible Dust curator, Alice Sharp, is appealing to cyclists across London to take part on Sunday the 6th of December from 12:00 noon - 9:00pm in a new art work by internationally renowned sound artist Kaffe Matthews. 

Matthews has made a new eight channel audio work that will take nine hours to unravel through eight speakers. It will be powered by bicycle. Each cyclist will be required to pedal non-stop for a minimum of five minutes.

Staged on the weekend before the UN Climate change Conference in Copenhagen, in clean air we fly is an Invisible Dust project that seeks to re-engage people in the issues around UK air pollution.
 
The work plays with the analogy between sound and invisible airborne pollution.
Kaffe Matthews, a world-renowned artist working in sound, has fed statistics about the local air pollution combined with the voices of local children into the recording and filtering of a new music 'composition'.  

The resulting multi-layered work takes the form of an audience powered audio experiment that will fill Gillett Square.

The installation continues 7 -11 December, 12:00 noon - 6:00pm, at The Vortex Jazz Club


Contact:
Simon Steven
Gillett Squared Press Office
Tel: 01843 596 194
simon@simonsteven.net


NOTES FOR EDITORS

Press Drinks Reception 6:00-9:00 pm Sunday 6th December at the Ochre Works Café , Gillett Square, Dalston, London E8. RSVP Gillett Squared Press Office

in clean air we fly is commissioned by Invisible Dust and produced by Hackney Cooperative Developments Gillett Squared project. 

It is the inaugural event for Invisible Dust, an organisation set up by curator Alice Sharp and supported through a research grant from the Wellcome Trust to involve artists and scientists in highlighting air pollution, effects on health and climate change.  Atmospheric Chemist, Professor Peter Brimblecombe, from University of East Anglia, who measures air pollution through measuring the components of dust, has inspired the Invisible Dust project.

The bicycles for the in clean air we fly event on Sunday 6 December are provided by Magnificent Revolution.  The work continues indoors at the Vortex, London's world-renowned jazz club at the end of Gillett Square from 12:00-6:00pm each day 7th-11th December.
 
To make in clean air we fly, Matthews collaborated with 40 children from Shacklewell and Colvestone primary schools in Dalston to explore the possibilities of city transport without pollution and its related health and environmental effects. Together they investigated the local streets, identifying the air pollution hotspots and mapping the results at both street and sky levels to build a musical score from the local airspace. The children recorded neighborhood street sounds, played instruments and wrote songs also exploring the tones of the ancient Solfeggio series which Matthews has combined to create one shifting multilayered audio work.
 
This project seeks to highlight the urgent need for people to reduce their car use. Man-made air pollution has many effects on health as well as contributing to climate change. It aggravates Asthma: currently 5.4 million people in the UK are receiving treatment for asthma, of these 1.1 million are children (1 in 11) and 42% of people with asthma say that traffic fumes stop them walking and shopping in congested areas (Asthma UK website)

Gillett Square in Dalston was the first urban square to be completed in the '100 Public Spaces' for London Initiative. Since 2006 a cultural programme has explored how the square can function as an inclusive public arts venue. This work is led by Hackney Co-operative Developments in collaboration with a range of local partners.
  
Kaffe Matthews has been making and performing new music via all kinds of digital gadgetry internationally for fifteen years. She is now most known for her live sampling performances of events and places in real time and the collective project “music for bodies” which makes sonic furniture and music to feel rather than just listen to. Recent works include The Marvelo Project,(2008), a Folkestone Triennial commission, which enabled visitors to cycle their own path through the work from specially made GPS linked stereo bicycles, and Fathers (2009), an audiovisual opera with the Lappetites, just premiered HKW, Berlin. Currently she is working with the Gluts to make the musical performance Café Carbon for the Copenhagen climate summit, and Symphony Hammerhead, an ambitious collaboration with shark scientists to make an audio visual work for 2011, after a recent Gulbenkian Galapagos Islands residency. Her 2004 collaboration Weightless Animals was awarded a BAFTA, she received a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship in 2005 and an Award of Distinction, Prix Ars Electronica 2006 for the work Sonic Bed London. In 2006 she was made an Honorary Professor of Music, Shanghai Music Conservatory and in 2009 a patron of the Galapagos Conservation Trust shark project. Her stereo solo works are available through: ...
 
Local partners: Colvestone Primary School, Jenny Staff, A Space, Shacklewell Primary School. 

The project is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Hackney Council.
 
 
Websites:

Kaffe Matthews: 
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Invisible Dust: 
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The Vortex Jazz Club: 
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Gillett Square: 
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Travel to Gillett Square:

Link to map click here:
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Dalston Kingsland London Overground Station, Buses: 149, 243, 76,67, 38