This event is part of the exhibition «For Real!». It takes place on diffrent spots in the City of St.Gallen.
Locations for gathering: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen; Palace; Stadtpark (city park, corner Museumsstrasse/Parkstrasse)
The artist and theater maker Tim Etchells invites all citizens and visitors of St. Gallen to collectively make one hour of noise on the streets of St. Gallen. Everyone is invited to gather at three places in the town bringing musical instruments, whistles, claxons, rattles, drums, pots and pans and other acoustic means of making sound. From these locations, groups will then process together to the centre where noise making will continue until 5pm.
In «Hour of Noise» Etchells attempts to stage a temporary transformation of the town through the joint participation of its residents, a transformation which is effected in sound alone. Whilst referencing the joyous abandon of carnival, the desire for change of political protest, and the enthusiasm of sports euphoria, Etchells’ «Hour of Noise» at the same time ducks these ‘usual’ motivations or reasons for gathering. Instead it invites us to the pleasure of collectively made noise, in an ambitious yet ambiguous collaborative sound work for public space.
The collective action of Etchells «Hour of Noise» offers a playful disruption to the tacit quotidian agreement about life in shared space - which warrants for the most part that no 'unnecessary' noise is created. In this sense the work aims to underscore and draw attention (by breaking it) to the consensual silence that much of the day tends to pass in.
Tim Etchells (1962, UK) is an artist and a writer based in the UK. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as the leader of the world-renowned performance group Forced Entertainment and in collaboration with a range of visual artists, choreographers, and photographers. His work spans performance, video, photography, text projects, installation and fiction. His first novel The Broken World was published by Heinemann in 2008 and his monograph on contemporary performance and Forced Entertainment, Certain Fragments (Routledge 1999) is widely acclaimed. In recent years Etchells has exhibited widely in the context of visual arts, with solo shows at Gasworks and Sketch (London) and Künstlerhaus Bremen. His work has appeared in the biennales Manifesta 7 (2008) in Rovereto, Italy,Art Sheffield 2008, Goteborg Biennale (2009), October Salon Belgrade (2010) and Aichi Trienale, Japan (2010). Selected group shows include Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam), MUHKA (Antwerp), Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan), Sparwasser HQ (Berlin), MACBA (Barcelona), The Centre for Book Arts, Canada and Exit Art (all New York) and Kunsthaus Graz. He is currentlyLegacy: Thinker in Residence (2009-2010) at Tate Research and LADA in London.www.timetchells.com