The Science Museum is very pleased to announce our first ever Sound Artist in Residence, Aleks Kolkowski.
In recent years Aleks has explored the potential of historical sound recording and reproduction technology to make contemporary mechanical-acoustic music. His works for singers, instrumentalists and even singing canaries often feature live-made sound inscriptions onto wax cylinders and lacquer discs using Edison phonographs and old disc recording lathes.
Other activities include repurposing discarded digital CDs with 45rpm analog records and both sound installations and performances where historic sound reproducing machines, mechanical musical instruments, and archival recordings are combined with state-of-the-art electronics. Such practice-led research using antiquated audio technologies and investigations into little-known forms of mechanical amplification led to the award of a Ph.D. from Brunel University.
His major project to date has been an archive of contemporary musicians, artists, and writers recorded exclusively on wax cylinders. Begun in 2006 and continuing, the entire Phonographies collection may be listened to online.
Busily recording away, Aleks has developed a series of weekly radio programmes documenting the sounds of the museum. Granted unfettered access to our collections and in close co-operation with curators and staff, Aleks has recorded objects, machines, and instruments and the stories associated with them. The radio series will be aired on Resonance 104.4 FM at 4.30 on Thursday afternoons every week beginning 22 March and repeated on Sundays at 11am.
From the service corridors and basement workshops to restricted areas on the upper floors, the sounds of the entire building will be also be traced in an attempt to map the sounds of one of the world’s greatest museums.
This week’s show: 5 Thursday, April, 16:30 – 17:30, repeated on 8 Sunday at 11am
Machine Music: Sounds of Steam; Double Beam and Mill Engines; Loom
This week’s show focuses on the giant steam driven mill engine in the Energy Hall on the ground floor of the museum and the largest working exhibit on display. Ben Russell, curator of Mechanical Engineering talks about its history and maintenance engineer and steam specialist John Shulver fires up the boiler and blasts some excess steam out into the museum courtyard. We hear the engine in all its glory from close up on the deck down to its thudding echoes in the basement. Also heard on the programme are the clamorous clacking sounds of the Toyoda Loom and the rhythmic chug and whir of an exquisitely engineered model double-beam steam engine from 1840.
Last week’s show: The Museum as a Sonic Space
Tim Boon, the Science Museum’s Head of Research, muses on how sound operates in the museum, whether accidental, incidental or deliberately created, through a guided tour of particular galleries and exhibits. In the second half of the programme, Aleks accompanies Exhibit Maintenance Manager Sean Wogan as he starts up the Water Garden and other delights.