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17/11/2005

Loud and Clear Too

Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen City, Fujian

Art, music and sound After successful presentations of Loud & Clear the Bifrons Foundation will continue its travel along venues in Europe and Asia with Loud & Clear TOO.

In the past years Loud & Clear has generated a lot of attention in different countries since its world premiere in BALTIC, Gateshead (GB) and has stirred up a lively discussion since. This unique project with visual artists, composers and publicity designers has been enlarged and extended with 5 more video films.

Signboards in the form of electronic screens play a large role in Loud & Clear. These are increasingly to be seen in our streets and in other public spaces. Signboards are designed in the first place to solicit and to promote commercial products, but here there is no commercial purpose to the advertising.

Artists, composers and advertising agencies were asked to work together on making a film or a composition for Loud & Clear, with a high degree of autonomy to be sure. This sounds like a paradox, but the combination of disciplines should be seen more as a form of 'living apart together'.

In most cases there was first consultation between the composer and the artist about their musical preferences, after which musicians in Amsterdam, Reykjavík, Zurich and New York – and recently in Budapest and Berlin - were able to begin executing the brand-new compositions. The artists were invited to make a film and the advertising agencies were commissioned to advertise the world of the artist, without any commercial purpose. Or as in Loud & Clear TOO as far as it concerns the publicity designers to make a video work based on the music.

It is striking that the music in LOUD & CLEAR plays a very dominant role in all videos. The advertising agency Fastland from Reykjavik already commented at the beginning of the project that "short advertising spots were in all cases driven along by the music, which is what makes or breaks the commercial." This could explain why the artists have either responded to the music with slow images or have consciously integrated the music into the montage of their film.

Each video is clearly an individual work of art and shows a lively symbiosis between art, music, sound and advertising. Seeing and hearing the results of Loud & Clear, one is immediately seized by the way in which, in most cases, the artists have made slowly moving images, as though life is not meant to have any beginning or end. The advertising agencies reveal a strong tendency towards paraphrasing the artists' films. Or in the most recent two cases towards a visual paraphrase of the music. Apart from these in all cases they relate their contribution to the sort of clue or joke that we are confronted with in TV and cinema commercials.

It is a pleasure to see how, in all disciplines and at a high artistic level, a great contribution has been made again to the discussion about what art, advertising and music have to do with each other in practice or to what extent they differ.

Opening: Novembr 18 th

Chinese European Art Center
Xiamen Universtiy Art College, Xiamen City - Fujian

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