THERE'S A STORM COMING - SOUNDS FROM THE ARCHIVE

The Len Lye Foundation Archive holds approximately 600 audio recordings and thousands of photographic slides. The recordings, mostly of the artist talking, hold valuable information about his sculptures, paintings and philosophy on art.  There are some hidden gems.  Len created many lectures using 35mm slides (in a Kodak carrousel slide projector) synchronised with audio tapes.  As the tape played, a separate track would send a pulse to the slide projector and the next slide would be shown.  In recent times the Foundation published an edited selection of these lectures as a DVD which is now available online.  See ‘Len Talks About Art’ on this site under, ‘Who was Len Lye? at: http://www.lenlyefoundation.com/page/len-lye-talks-about-art/4/90/ 

The audio recordings made almost 50 years ago, are on ¼” magnetic tape and are at risk of deteriorating and eventually becoming inaudible.  With funding from the Foundation, Paul Brobbel, Curator at the Len Lye Centre, had the audio tapes and many of the 35 mm photographic slides transferred to digital files.  Paul, with assistance from others, is now in the throes of producing transcriptions from the digital tapes and cataloguing the complete collection of audio visual material. 

This is an important and necessary project to complete.  This valuable collection of audio visual material is now in two forms, the original analogue slides and tape, which will be deposited at Ng? Taong? Sound and Vision for safe keeping, and high quality digital files. The digital form, along with the transcriptions will ‘open up’ the archive to further research and scholarship. Our thanks to Paul and Nga Taong? Sound and Vision for preserving and securing this valuable part of the Len Lye heritage. 

In 1969 Len exhibited a new sculpture at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York called ‘Storm’, an ensemble of three works that ‘acted out’ the forces of nature.  The group exhibition, Kinesthetics, was promoted as “exploring the aesthetic potentials of some recent technological developments.”  The catalogue describes Len’s works as: “The Storm King and Thunder Sheet slowly start to move in increasingly violent patterns.  One subsides, the other reaches a new peak; they vie with each other to reach greater heights.  As the tension seems to reach the breaking point, the energy is suddenly withdrawn and the metals regain their tranquillity.  The storm is over”. 

Parts of Storm exist in the Archive – the Thunder Sheets and the Lightning Bolts and possibly the motor from Storm – but it has never been run since the exhibition in New York.  At the finale of the performance, two Lightning Bolts are released from the ceiling striking ‘Sounding Wells’ on the floor made from stone and stainless steel. 

But what will this sound like?  While listening to the audio tapes, Paul came across what he thinks are original recordings of the Lightning Bolts crashing into the Sounding Wells.  What a find!  Sound files like this are invaluable to our knowledge and understanding of Len’s work.   

Listen to the sound file here. 

And watch this space – there’s a Storm coming!