Jez Riley French // Audible Silence Series

This talk is part of Bluedot’s Audible Silence series, a programme exploring creative uses of the Earth’s natural sounds with talks by a variety of contemporary artists.

Using recordings of infrasound, minerals dissolving and 10,000 year old air being released from glaciers, Jez’s work focuses on the fragility of our contemporary definition of ‘nature’ in a sonic sense and how revealing the myriad audible silences of environments can serve to challenge our perceptions.

Using intuitive composition, field recording, improvisation and photography, Jez has been exploring his enjoyment of and interest in detail, simplicity and his emotive response to places and situations for over 3 decades. Alongside performances, exhibitions and installations, Jez is a guest lecturer at numerous universities and gives talks at galleries and other organisations, runs workshops on located sound around the world and his range of specialist microphones are widely used by recordists, sound artists, musicians, sound designers and cultural organisations. He also works as a curator of live events, of a record label, of sound installations and an arts zine entitled ‘verdure engraved’.

His work has been exhibited in shows and installations alongside that of Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Pauline Oliveros, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Stars of the Lid, Jeremy Deller, Sarah Lucas, Brian Eno, Signe Liden, Sally Ann McIntyre etc, at galleries including The Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), Tate Modern and Tate Britain, MOT – Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (Japan), Artisphere (USA). During 2017 Jez was commission by the UK’s City of Culture, Hull 2017, to deliver or be involved in several key projects inc. Height of the Reeds & North Atlantic Flux.

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