Test Bed 1: Rise of Treble, Ode to Bass – Joseph Walsh

Arch Gallery 3

20 April – 30 May
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm
On-Site Screenings open to the public

Mobile phones and laptop speakers vie for eardrum time today in public spaces. No longer are these sounds in the private space of your home, but collide with bus interiors and the public looking in various directions. Try to turn up the bass on these tinny speakers – there isn’t any…

Arch Gallery 3 is in service as a film production studio for Joseph Walsh’s new work Rise of Treble, Ode to Bass. Walsh brings to the residency a script for three characters, for which he auditioned on 19 April. Over the residency period the artist will be building a film set from tissue paper, developing roles with his performers and shooting rushes for the new film with basic equipment.

Rise of Treble Production Still

The new work is conceived as a series of tableaux depicting metaphysical experiences his characters are having as they interact with new technology. Representing a digital landscape, the tissue construction suggests the zones and temporal states that the protagonists pass through, disembodied in time and space. The film focuses on the impact of a new democracy on the internet, exemplified by the proliferation and availability of contemporary music.

For the TestBed commission, Walsh extends his practice by writing a film script for the first time – previous works have appropriated cinematic text. The new work in progress is informed by suggestions in dance music genres that play with current and obsolete technologies to portray subjects blindly following their obsessions.

TestBed 1 is produced as part of Beaconsfield’s curatorial mentoring scheme for emerging artist-curators. Mentees: Dafna Talmor and Joseph Walsh. Beaconsfield is the central London site dedicated to providing a critical space for creative enquiry.

Beaconsfield Commissions 2010

Images: Joseph Walsh, Rise of Treble, Ode to Bass, 2010, TestBed 1 Commission, courtesy the artist and Beaconsfield

Top: Research development imagery

Lower: Rise of Treble, Ode to Bass – LIVE, performance still