Sound artist on stage

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 22

Sound artist on stage

An American sound artist Richard Lerman will give a performance in the Centre Gallery at the Arts Centre next Tuesday evening. A teacher of performance art and film-making at the Boston Museum School, Richard Lerman has performed at many international festivals in a style similar to that of a local sound artist, John Cousins. Working in film, performance and gallery installations, Lerman uses the concert hall rather than the canvas to present his images. He uses copper, brass and bronze screens with aluminium foil, paper and credit cards to fashion microphones which pick up the sounds of the environment. In one piece, “Incident at Three Mile Island — Perhaps an Elegy to Karen Silkwood,” he uses amplified tuning forks and laser lights to create the visual and sonic image of radioactivity out of control. Another piece, “Changing States,” uses transducers made of different materials which are heated to cause the different sounds of expansion and contraction. Both filmed and live renditions will feature in the Arts Centre performance.