ANDREW BYRNE AND TOM NICHOLSON

LINES TOWARDS ANOTHER CENTURY

Performance – The Elysian Quartet – Sunday 22 June, 16.30hrs
Artist’s talk – 24 June, 18.00hrs
Exhibition continues 24 June to 6 July 2008 (Tue to Sat 10.00 - 17.00, Sun 11.00 - 17.00)

Commissioned by Media Art Bath, http://www.mediaartbath.org.uk
Media Art Bath at The Holburne Museum
Great Pulteney Street
Bath BA2 4DB

Media Art Bath is delighted to announce that it has invited Australian artist, Tom Nicholson and New York based composer, Andrew Byrne to collaborate on a work for presentation at The Holburne Museum in June, commencing with a performance of the resulting work by The Elysian Quartet.

Lines Towards Another Century, takes as its starting point, a list of the national boundaries created during the 20th Century. Since 2003, Tom Nicholson has used this list as the basis of a number of projects including a series of banner marches (realised as participatory performances) and exhibitions that document and extend this material through video, drawing and photography. The list forms a mnemonic ordering system as the lines of the boundaries are traced onto contemporary cities, and translated into contemporary contexts.

The work will be presented at The Holburne Museum as an exhibition with the live performance of an instructional score for instrumental ensemble and voice. This will be performed by The Elysian Quartet within a specially devised installation of visual and sonic elements gathered from the various performances and actions that make up the work – ranging from footage of the banner marches to the recordings of individual voices.

Lines Towards Another Century makes reference to the issue of boundary making – often a bloody and violent contention both historically and today – by cleverly layering and obliquely referencing this history through action in the present.

For more information and images please contact Bridget Crone or Lucy Sames on 01225 442 591, or email: info@mediaartbath.org.uk.

Lines Towards Another Century has been commissioned by Media Art Bath.

Media Art Bath – championing contemporary art and ideas through the development of bold new work.

TOM NICHOLSON is a Melbourne-based artist interested in the contact between actions and images, and their relationship to the archive and to memory. He has exhibited internationally including at the 15th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago; Humboldt University, Berlin; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and Artspace, Auckland. His work has been reviewed in a range of magazines and press including: Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific and Frieze. Tom Nicholson is a member of Ocular Lab and is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery. He is also Lecturer in Drawing in the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University, Melbourne.

ANDREW BYRNE is a New York-based composer, who has written works for film, dance, theatr and the concert hall. His music, which always betrays a fascination with polyrhythm, is influenced by American experimental music and non-Western music traditions and has been described by the Australian Financial Review as: sounding like a weird and wonderful otherworldly folk music. His work has been performed by the Lark Quartet, the renowned Australian pianist, Michael Kieran Harvey, and New York-based contemporary music ensemble, Either/Or amongst others.

THE ELYSIAN QUARTET is the only British string quartet of its generation focused exclusively on 20th Century contemporary experimental music, and has worked with a diverse array of artists such as virtuoso beat-boxer Killa Kela, jazz pianist Keith Tippett and bands such as Hot Chip. They have received airplay on BBC Radio 1, Radio 3, Radio 4 and Classic FM and have been described by The Strad as possessing:…outstanding coolness and flexibility… quicksilver tonal variety… sharp musical and technical reflexes.