Clare Cooper will be exhibiting a series of situational graphic scores, several short film portraits, and will perform the third in her series of situation specific Mapped Intimacy projects. Cooper will be artist-in-residence for the first week of this exhibition.
Clare Cooper is a designer, harpist and string percussionist. Her current investigations into context and the role it plays in performance have led her to map spaces, situations and engage in speculative design – to project an experience into a space, to play porously – the liquids and gases being the sounds of the instrument and senses of the audience.
As a musician, she’s ferocious with strings and sticks, her sound inspired by synthesizers and broken boom boxes. She plays the chinese guzheng and pedal harp – more often than not with drumsticks and violin bows – snapping, crackling, popping and stabbing.
Her desire to engage audiences in experiments of contemporary sound, composition and performance is evidenced by her work as founder of the NOW now festival and concert series (est. Sydney 2001), Splinter Orchestra Sydney and Splitter Orchester Berlin.
Over the past 15 years Cooper has performed in 17 countries both as a soloist and interdisciplinary collaborator. Her compositions have been featured on Australia’s ABC, Germany’s SWR and UK’s BBC and have been published by the Australian Music Centre, Mikroton (Russia), Splitrec (Australia) and High Zero (USA). She was based in Berlin from 2007 where she founded the Splitter Orchester and Hammeriver ensembles and curated events for Ausland and RadialsystemV. In 2013 Cooper relocated to Sydney with her equally noisy daughter.
Artist website: www.gutstring.net
Opening and performance: Thursday 2 April, 5.30pm start
Exhibition runs to Saturday 25 April.
Special thanks to CNZ and Becks for their support.
Audio Foundation, 4 Poynton Terrace (sub-basement Parisian Tie Factory), Auckland Central