“View Masters - Remix”
Nathan Gray, Dylan Martorell and Geoff Robinson
3 Feb → 18 Feb 2007

View Masters – Remix was an ambitious international project undertaken in partnership between West Space and Osaka Arts Aporia. The project looked to expand the existing View Masters concept, which originated out of Osaka Arts Aporia, by lending a cultural exchange element between the sister cities of Melbourne and Osaka, and by incorporating visual arts installation practice within the framework. Three Australian artists, Nathan Gray, Dylan Martorell and Geoff Robinson, traveled to Osaka to work with artists involved in the View Masters project, including Haco, Toshiya Tsunoda, and Yuko Nexus. The artists undertook a series of workshops, before creating new audio-visual installations in Hamadera Koen Railway Station Gallery, using sound and visual materials sourced from the tram network that runs through Osaka, reflecting the network of trams in their home city of Melbourne. This was further developed in a series of sound performances on trams travelling through the streets of Osaka, in which Snawklor (Gray & Martorell) performed live with a number of Japanese musicians.??

A summary of the existing curatorial framework of the View Masters project:

The View Masters project is an environmental sound project that attempts to “use the ear to approach sound from a different angle.” Musicians, visual artists, writers, designers, and other like-minded people are invited as ‘sound spotters’ to record and document sounds that each person finds interesting. In this way, the spotlight is trained on what were previously anonymous sounds. One of the aims of the project is to create a library of the sounds that have been observed by artists working in different mediums. Needless to say, the environment around us undergoes rapid change as a result of technological developments and various social trends. Concurrently, we also come into contact with primal aspects of the landscape that remain unchanged. "Sound,” under these circumstances, seems to function as a reflection in a mirror (the viewer). This is the concept that provides the foundation for View Masters (the Sound Collection and Observation Organization) as it attempts to organize workshops and exhibit materials, create a library of aural observations, contribute sound documents to CD compilations and participate in educational art programs.

A West Space and Osaka Arts Aporia project