Double-Talk - A radio programme about dialogue

This BBC Radio 4 programme explores the art of the dialogue, in philosophy and law, in religion, psychoanalysis and the arts.

"Dialogue is a special kind of exchange. At its most simple, between two voices A and B back and forth, one speaks as the other listens and vice versa. Both parties change from the experience. It's an ancient model for how we should communicate, debate, speak, listen and think.

Built around a series of conversations, this programme explores the two-voice dialogue across different spheres - its foundations in the ancient world and in law, in religious thought and modern psychoanalysis, in philosophy and fiction, in drama and comedy and even in music. Dialogue as competition and exchange, as the art of listening as well as speaking, a form of equity or even disguise.



The very earliest dialogues were rowdy and competitive, each voice trying to gain mastery over the other with one judged the winner - in ancient Sumerian writing summer debates with winter, copper takes on silver, fish against bird. These dialogues, all about prosecution and defence, became a foundation for legal argument. But dialogue can be used to describe something more pacific, an approach to understanding and agreement. In Western philosophy, the dialogue was the great revealer of truth - most famously the Socratic dialogues of Plato, which lay down the principles of reason through opposition and exchange.

When it works, the dialogue is a learning process, transforming both participants in the process.

But when two voices are put in dialogue, face to face, is truth and understanding always the outcome? Dialogue can also be a measure of silence, a space where parties conceal as much as they reveal - a way for authors to disguise their own voice by writing for two, sometimes in order to print radical ideas or reveal secrets without taking direct ownership of them, from Galileo to Oscar Wilde.

Contributors include curator Irving Finkel and Helena Kennedy QC; philosopher Simon Critchley and literary scholar Hugh Haughton; singer Catherine Bott and jazz bassist Alec Dankworth; comedy writer John Finnemore and playwright Tristan Bernays; psychotherapist Adam Phillips and Giles Fraser, priest of St Mary's Newington in London."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w05zh

Studio is Sudden: Nadia Hebson

Image: Vyt Residency programme, New York May, 2014

Between November 2017 and February 2018 Giles Bailey & CIRCA Projects have invited a number of guests who take interesting and unique approaches to working with archival material, rethinking the contemporary by moving away from dominant narratives in history. This week's event was a conversation with Nadia Hebson as she reflected upon her recent practice.

Nadia writes

“When considering the legacy of American painter Christina Ramberg and her creative female circle I have made paintings in concert with large-scale prints, objects and text. When called to I’ve described the work through a narrative of recuperation, a reconsideration of overlooked histories, aware this was a partial truth perhaps more diminishing than expanding.

One afternoon in Antwerp the writers Daniela Cascella, Kate Briggs and myself met to discuss Daniela’s book ‘Singed’, Daniela had just read an excerpt that described her coming to Clarice Lispector, a woman writer drawn to a woman writer, but a description of recuperation wasn’t enough to describe this exchange. Daniela, Kate and myself searched for another way to acknowledge this work, our work and the impulses that drive it, criticism seemed like the only option.

Italian feminist Carla Lonzi had a theory that in order to break the monologue of patriarchal history women needed to articulate their subjective experience through a collective endeavour, as unexpected subjects they could converse with other women both in and across time. Lonzi named this political act resonance, a means by which to avoid complicity with the patriarchy, a means by which to undo the roles linked to women’s oppression.

If the work I make needs to resist categories, how do I talk about it, how do I make it and what is it? Not interested in re-configuring canons but addressing alternative histories through self-reflexive means (maybe?) how do we even start a conversation, please let’s start a conversation”.


I admire Nadia's articulacy and depth of knowledge, and have held the impression that her work is heavily researched and academic. I was therefore surprised to find out that the way her work is framed in the academic field is not necessarily how she wants the work to be understood. Throughout the conversation Nadia spoke about her personal reaction to other artists work and the memories and associations that are attached to particular materials. Framing her work in terms of archives seems to ignore the more subjective and intuitive nature of Nadia's practice.



Sadly, I did not have long to spend in Nadia's studio, but what was obvious was that there was a continual process of play with materials, colours, forms and imagery and I think that the language used to describe Nadia's practice does not necessarily recognise these important aspects of her process and work.

The conversation was a very effective way of learning more about what Nadia is interested in and her process of making work. Thank you to her and CIRCA Projects for sharing this with me and the audience.

Practice Makes Practice at The NewBridge Project: ‘the listening room’ – conversation with Jez Riley French

This event took the form of a discussion about the role of located and performance-based sound in the contemporary sonic arts.

Jez Riley French gave a presentation/talk on some of aspects of his work with extended listening along with anecdotes, and he shared some key artists working with located sound including:

Klara Lewis

Signe Liden

Sally Ann McIntyre

Dawn Scarfe

Halla Steinunn Stefansdottir

Julia Holter

Manja Ristic

and Jana Winderen.

This lead us into an open conversation where we discussed topics such as

How does fit recording sit with the idea of nature and the idyll?

The role of misogyny in the distorted histories of sound cultures

The act of listening

I really appreciate Jez' way of working and highly respect his approach to making work. He likes discovering and sharing existing sounds, as opposed to manufacturing his own. He uses a range of microphones including hydrophones, electromagnetic, ultrasonic and contact microphones to record sounds that are beyond our normal hearing capabilities. His use of photography adds another element to the audio rather than illustrating the sound.

David Batchelor on grey

In a recent conversation between artist David Batchelor and Andrea Schlieker, curator of Batchelor's current Flatlands exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Batchelor talks about the colour grey.

Batchelor: "There's that great phrase by Wittgenstein:

'Whatever looks luminous does not look grey'.

It is such a fascinating observation. What is it about grey and luminosity? Why is it so hard to think of a bright grey?

I thought I'd make a suite of grey paintings, but grey is so complex. The minute you select a grey and put it next to another grey, it becomes not grey, it becomes slightly greenish, or reddish, or pinkish, or blueish or brownish"

Schlieker: "That's similar to what you said about Robert Ryman's white : his are the most colourful whites"

Batchelor: "White is many, not one. And grey is many, many, many. If you read the thesaurus, synonyms for grey are bland, boring, dull, old, lifeless. Grey gets a really bad press, but read Vincent Van Gogh or Johannes Itten or Gerhard Richer on grey, and it's something else. Grey is as complex as any other colour, but in a way it's the most surprising colour because it's the colour where you least expect surprises."

Helen Shaddock in conversation with Martin Craig and Julie-Ann Delaney - Thursday 11th April - 6-8pm - Market Gallery

presents

 

Helen Shaddock in conversation with Martin Craig, Learning & Access Curator, GoMA and Julie-Ann Delaney, Curator, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Thursday 11th April
6pm-8pm
Gallery 3, Market Gallery

Coinciding with her current Studio Project exhibition at Market Gallery, Helen Shaddock will discuss her work with Martin Craig, Learning & Access Curator, GoMA and Julie-Ann Delaney, Curator, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Topics to be covered include interdisciplinarity, sculpture and painting in relation to Shaddock's work.

Refreshments provided.