[spectre] MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... William Bennett. Part I #podcast

[Radio Web MACBA]

*MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... William Bennett. Part I*

Link: http://bit.ly/tLaof9

MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH… seeks to break through to unearth and
reveal private collections of music and sound memorabilia. It is a
historiography of sound collecting that reveals the unseen and passionate
work of the amateur collector while reconstructing multiple parallel
histories such as the evolution of recording formats, archiving issues, the
collecting market and the evolution of musical styles beyond the
marketplace.

>From the outset, *William Bennett*'s career has steered clear of the
simplicity of transparency in favour of double or triple readings that
invite listeners to delve further. The name of the group he founded in
1980, Whitehouse, was chosen as a sarcastic tribute twice over: on one
hand, it refers to ultraconservative activist Mary Whitehouse, and on the
other, to a homonymous pornographic magazine published in the United
Kingdom in the seventies. Although this is just one example, this kind of
subtext is a constant element that has been present throughout a career
that could be compared to an audible Rorschach test. Bennett’s artistic
oeuvre is a network of myths, taboos and bête noires designed to pull
listeners (sometimes by force) out of their natural comfort zone. Not only
through noise, but also metaphors, symbols and twisted uses of sound and
words. And this particular approach to understanding the creative act or
collective catharsis is reflected, almost down to the last point, in
Bennett’s obsessions as a music collector.

In spite of the huge variations in cultural contexts, timeframes and even
functions, his four main areas of interest (twentieth century avant-garde,
Italo disco, soundtracks and percussion music from Western Africa) conceal
numerous keys that shed light on Bennett's hermetic musical universe from
many angles, and also on his conception of the act of collecting itself.
Far from merely accumulating objects, Bennett's approach to collecting
entails a meticulous process of constant purge and renewal, in a quest for
what he calls 'purity', or what we could – in a direct reference to
Whitehouse – describe as 'asceticism'. Because the radical reductionism
that hovers over much of William Bennett's work also prevails in his
incredibly varied but enormously consistent music collection, in which
nostalgia takes on overtones of archaeological research. Like the ten
inkblot images of the Rorschach test, the British artist's collection
brings to the surface his interests and obsessions, and an entire way of
understanding music as a cultural and human process.

+ info:
>>Conversation with William Bennett (PDF):
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/memorabilia_william_bennett_conversation/capsula
>>MP3 of his lecture:
http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/twitter/memorabilia_william_bennett.mp3
>>Memorabilia. Lecture series:
http://www.macba.cat/controller.php?p_action=show_page&pagina_id=33&inst_id=30547&lang=ESP&PHPSESSID=lqv5cfq33bqh9mflognhmcv237

>>Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Radio_Web_MACBA
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