Octet
or
Construction and Modification
David Raymond Conroy brings together three works that have loss, removal and absence at their heart. Through editing, removal and reduction the pieces meditate on the relationship between unperceived labour and actualized product. Conroy presents an attempt to share experience through, and in acknowledgement of, the artwork’s own duplicity – its consumption and its generosity.
In the exhibition are four large black monochromes. These are acoustic panels built using instructions taken from online hi-fi and home studio recording websites. Named after the forums whose members conceived the designs, the panels offer a variety of techniques for removing the echoes from a room, for absorbing sound. Using differing materials pulled over variously sized and shaped stretchers these forms assert a monumentality of absence.
Considering Considered (2011) is a transmitted radio broadcast of the artist reading the edited transcript of a radio-program, which eulogizes an un-named author. The apparent emotive content of the program is paralleled by its technical discussion on the uses of sentiment in expressive writing. Both an attempt to express loss adequately and a gainful manipulation of these terms, the work forms a treatise on the efficacy and benefit of labour itself.
The work Well Begun is Half Done (2010-11) is a group of framed photographic images each of which depicts an oddly cropped or inconsequential scene. Each image is one half of a double page photographic spread from a coffee table style illustrated travel book, the two page image having been bisected at the book’s central binding. Each newly presented image is complete in itself while at the same time it is apparent that something is missing. They are one step removed and two steps closer to what they present.
David Raymond Conroy, Considering Considered, 2011
FM broadcast
(Target hi-fi stand, Jacobsen Radio 2, radio broadcast equipment,
media player, LCD monitor)
19 mins, looped
David Raymond Conroy, Installation View, 2011
David Raymond Conroy, Installation View, 2011
David Raymond Conroy, Image provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and belongs to the public domain, P.50, 1988, Entering Space: An Astronauts Odyssey, Allen J.P., design Teensma, H., 3rd edition, London, Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd under the Black Cat imprint, 2011
Framed bookpage, unique
47 x 36.5 cm
David Raymond Conroy, Winnie Denker, p.44, 1982, Library of Nations: The United States, van Tulleken, K. (ed.), deign Artes Gráficas Toledo, 6th edition, Amsterdam, Time Life Books, 2011
Framed bookpage, unique
47 x 36.5 cm
David Raymond Conroy, Beryl Darby & B. Vasiliades, p.20, 1984, Spinalonga, The Leper Island, Darby, B., design Eliopoulos, N., 1st edition, Athens, Efstathiadis Group, 2011
Framed bookpage, unique
47 x 36.5 cm
David Raymond Conroy, Gearslutz, 2011
Wood, Cotton fabric, linen fabric, Knauf CS48 Earthwool Universal Slabs
123 x 123 x 10 cm
David Raymond Conroy, Eric Lars Bakke, p. 11, 1986, A Day in the Life of America, Smolen, R. & Cohen, D. (eds.), design Singer, E.,1st edition, New York, Collins Publishers, 2011
Framed bookpage, unique
47 x 36.5 cm
David Raymond Conroy, prodigy-pro, 2011
Wood, OSB, lycra/cotton fabric, 50mm rockwool RW3 panels, 50mm acoustic diffusion foam
243 x 122 x 18 cm
David Raymond Conroy, Installation View, 2011