Artists

Sam Smith & Sumugan Sivanesan

Scouring their surrounds for things both strange and familiar, working with vernacular and ethereal materials, Sam Smith and Sumugan Sivanesan wind tension, realise moments of clarity then drift further afield into unmapped sonic territories. Intuitive and curious they probe these zones with abandon and relish.

Their sonic collages are immediate and engaging. Patterns and structures reveal themselves, then are smeared, worked into, erased, or simply cut off. Focus shifts, lines blur, music is ambiguous. What is being drawn attention to? The tone, the timbre, the note, the conversation, the object, the room, the situation?or something else?

Sam Smith and Sumugan Sivanesan are restless experimenters. Contact mics, found objects, field recordings, transistor radios, interference, and feedback are amongst their materials. They respond to their situation, incorporating or emphasising the peculiarities of their immediate surrounds. Sam Smith and Sumugan Sivanesan not only play the room, they play the mood. They walk the tight rope between the sound, the performance, the audience and the space. Sam Smith and Sumugan Sivanesan are not always in control, but they are not afraid.


Biography: Sam Smith
Born Sydney, 1980

Sam Smith exploits the conventions of video, sculpture, photography and sound (both live and recorded). He takes electronic, physical and
bodily exchanges and forms looping structures, time jumps, and technological distortions. His live sound explores the intersection of treated or untreated improvisational piano with electronics.

Sam Smith has a first class honours Bachelor of Fine Arts from College
of Fine Arts, UNSW. He lives and works in Sydney.


Sumugan Sivanesan is an artist from Sydney, Australia. From early explorations of media and form, his work has evolved into a conceptual practice, concerned with communication, private and public space, cross cultural values and patterns in sex, politics, mythology, mechanics and the weather.

His video and sound works have received exposure at various international events such as Minimal Dissociations, Club Transmediale (Germany 2004), Abstraction Now (Vienna 2003), New Forms (Canada 2003), the International Symposium for Electronic Art (Japan 2002), d>ART02 (Australia 2002), Liquid Architecture3 (Australia 2002), Experimenta (Australia 2001). A collection of recent sound works "Spare Your Speakers" has been released on Cronica Electronica (www.cronica.org). He has recently begun his own label, "Musique Provocateur" (mprov.org), dealing with experimental sound art and pop.

He is currently working on a series of projects which broadly re-align technology as a conduit for esoteric experiences.

Website: http://www.sivanesan.com