 As Jane Edwards and Geoffrey Rush Aileen Campbell "...our hearing is historically decided upon. What we hear is not what we choose to hear, but how we have been instructed to hear..." Aileen Campbell Gimpel Fils is pleased to present Aileen Campbell's first solo show in London. Her split screen video installation, "As Jane Edwards and Geoffrey Rush", is an uncanny work exploring the relationship between body and voice. "As Jane Edwards and Geoffrey Rush" is a performed recording undertaken by Campbell in which she sang a Vivaldi aria, "Nulla in mundo, pax sincera", whilst trampolining for 20 minutes. The repetitive bounce of Campbell's body, seen on one screen, acts as a metronome; an uninterrupted timepiece accompanying her singing providing a viewpoint unavailable during the performance. The other screen shows the singer and a string quartet performing. The physical exertion of this constant movement challenges Campbell's vocal control and disrupts the possibility of enjoying a polished musical performance. Aileen Campbell is interested in the place of the female voice, and the disassociation of the voice from the body, which has taken place in Western society. Campbell has noticed how the separation of the female voice from the body has a historical precedent, whereby, the angelic female voice within music has been ascribed sublime attributes. The location of the voice within some heavenly situation is undermined in Campbell's work in which the viewer is confronted with the fallibility of the voice through the body. The perfect musical rendition is denied due to the contradictory breathing required for the physical motion. In this work, Campbell endeavours to reunite the voice and body. Breaking down the separation of the voice and body, and attempting to present them as a unity does not, however, mean that they have to be in compliance with each other. Rather, this work is challenging audiences to recognise that the voice is from the body, of the body and informed by the body. As such, the unrehearsed and accidental sounds created by the body during Campbell's trampolining are incorporated into the rehearsed singing, so that within the musical performance the trace of the body can also be heard. Bringing the body and the voice into closer proximity, Campbell is battling any simple reductivism; Her work is not simply a dialogue between the voice and the body, but rather, a consideration of a voice with a body and a body with a voice. Aileen Campbell completed an MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 2005, and has exhibited widely including group exhibitions at Tramway, Glasgow; Dangerous Curve, Los Angeles; Swell Gallery, San Francisco. She has also worked closely with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. Exhibition: 4 April - 6 May 2006 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 10 am - 5.30 pm, Sat 11 am - 4 pm Gimpel Fils 30 Davies Street GB-London, W1K 4NB Telephone +44 20 7493 2488 Fax +44 20 7629 5732 Email info@gimpelfils.com www.gimpelfils.com |
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