This is the first time Michael Curran has shown at Matt's Gallery and Look what they done to my Song is his first solo exhibition in London.
For this new commission, Michael Curran presents a site-specific installation exploring themes of spectacle, performance, narrative order and the dynamic that is created between sculptural composition and film.

Three songs - The Devil is Afraid of Music, What have they done to my song, Ma and How does it Feel to Feel? - were performed and filmed in the exhibition space of Matt’s Gallery, creating an open recording session and film set for three days. Through the subsequent editing process, the recorded material is subjected to radical temporal shifts through the use of overlays, speeding up, slowing down and repetition. This manipulation creates a series of rhythms, counterpoints and silences and explores the construction of song and narrative expectation, forming a drama (or crisis) of performance. The songs themselves are at stake, their survival questioned through these processes of translation.

The overall feeling is that of a séance in which the enquiry becomes what have they done to my song?

This exhibition is accompanied by a free publication, the 14th in the second series of Matt's Gallery booklets and includes a CD of the performances.
The film Look what they done to my Song will tour to the Arnolfini, Bristol from 17 September 2007 to 6 January 2008.

Michael Curran is funded by Arts Council England, London with the support of Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network.

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