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Paul Devens
Maastricht — Netherlands
Biography
Notes to my work / The possible manifestations of physical space and social context define the site-specific qualities of my work. To make a unique work in a given space makes it compulsory to engage a custom strategy to fit that specific situation in order to issue- and to unfold the distinctive qualities of that space. / In the recent installations ‘Proximity Effect’ and ‘Measured Shuffle’ specific recordings of common sounds are being lifted out of its original context from society and implemented in a new one of the installation. These are architectonic constructions, especially made for the physical experience of sound. Each installation features a soundtrack or composition of previously recorded sounds. The presence of an audience is integrated as part of the work. / Phenomena are being part of the idiom of which my work communicates with, other than being the content of my work. / An initial engagement of my work is being determined by the perception. The ‘being’ of particular spatial, visual or acoustical interventions - or a combination of those – discloses the deeper complexity of the work. / The dialogue in between the condition (place, circumstances, biases, etc) and me is the motive of the artistic research. / I issue what ‘place’ is, which kind of reality it represents in the understanding of the residents, audiences or users. Often this is in conjunction with matters from economy and history. I look for the appropriate terms to make a possible artistic intervention relevant. / My work is interdisciplinary in the fields of composed sound, architecture, video and performance. I exhibit installations in museums, art-spaces and galleries, make interventions, sometimes commissioned, in public space, perform concerts in clubs, art-spaces and festivals, release CD- and vinyl-albums, sometimes cooperate with choreographers and other artists, and occasionally curate exhibitions and releases with other artists and thinkers. / Paul Devens studied at the ABK and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. His work has been installed, performed and screened at: le Magasin, Grenoble (France, 1994), LU, Nantes (France, 2000), Confort Moderne, Poitiers (France, 2001), Museum Z33, Hasselt (Belgium, 2002), Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (Germany, 2003) Marres, Maastricht (2000 & 2003), Ctrl_Alt_Del 1, 2 & 3 Istanbul (2003, 2005, 2007), Pause / Oboro Gallery, Montreal (2004) and OCA/ISP Oslo (2004), Love City, Tallinn, Salzburg, Maastricht (2006), Experimental Intermedia, New York (2006), Laptopia #4, Tel Aviv (2007), Digital Media, Valencia (2008), stichting Intro / In Situ Maastricht (2007, 2008), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Bureau Europa ‘Panels’, Maastricht (2010), Diapason Gallery, New York (2011), Radio Art Festival, Tallinn (2011), Resonance Network, Festival of Flanders, Kortrijk, Audio Art Festival Krakow, Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, NovemberMusic Den Bosch (2012), Z-out / PIT Z33, Borgloon (Belgium, 2012), etc.
Description of work with field recording
\"Tracker\" (B side) Preview of the track on a vinyl-record in an installation at the Biennale for Contemporary Art, Bosnia-Herzegowina, Sarajevo / Konjic, 2013. // Preliminary to the installation of “Tracker”, recordings were made in the area of Sarajevo and the venue of the exhibition. These recordings represent a cut-through of today’s life in that landscape at spots that bear the visible and invisible weight of the recent history. The routes of the recording trips were tracked on a GPS-logger. In “Tracker” the route, from the GPS, is reproduced and scaled down by a programmable robot above a turntable. The robot is able to lower a stylus to a vinyl record with edited recordings, to play it back. Recorded at locations from the mountains around Sarajevo, the Sarajevo Holiday Inn Hotel, the marketplace, the \'sniper alley\'- the route to the airport, the former venues of the Olympic games (from1984), etc.
Listen to Tracker b