Alexander Wendt an audio-visual artist, who predominantly works with sound restricts his output to the visual and presents the video component for this eighth episode of UNMUTE. His cinematic photography, unfolds quietly while all sonic explorations of the theme come from Jasper Leyland, who is using collected and gathered aural flotsam and ephemera. He extracts fragments of sound, before applying restrained digital processing and collages these into organic pieces.
This collaboration for UNMUTE #8 is not the first collaborative effort of Jasper Leyland and Alexander Wendt. Already in 2008 Jasper Leyland’s ‘Awake’ album was published as part of the Carbon Series on 12x50, a label dedicated to the experimental that is run by Wendt. Jasper Leyland also contributed to some research work of Wendt exploring the dichotomy of destruction and creation.
So both artists are familiar with each other’s working practice and aesthetics, and they are working sonically similar grounds too, but for UNMUTE neither of them did know of the work of the other before light and sound coincide now here.
Lit captures the ephemeral and celebrates the passing of time. But lit, as a starting point for this investigative visual research, is essentially dark. In many aspects one could argue that it is minimal: minimally lit, minimal in movement, however, with its evocative framing and its sonic illustration, the composition moves beyond its parts
Currently both artists are creating new material to be assembled for publication on the miatera imprint, which will be followed by more collaborative appearances later this year.
‘Open the windows, pull the blinds and let sound seep in.’ Alexander Wendt.