E-clipsed: Gary Murphy and sounds by Unthem

Installation view of E-clipsed

Gary Murphy, E-clipsed, installation view, 2019. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber

Wall text for E-clipsed

E-clipsed wall text. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber

Installation view of Embers

Gary Murphy, Embers, installation view, 2019. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber

On view: July 13 鈥 September 14, 2019

Reception: Saturday, July 13th from 5-9pm

Immersive sound sculptures and other works by Gary Murphy with sounds by Unthem.

Gary Murphy鈥檚 work is a sampling of historical styles across the 20th century 鈥 Marcel Duchamp, George Maciunas, Donald Judd, H.C. Westermann, and Edward and Nancy Kienholz 鈥 appropriating this history of dada, fluxus, minimalism, and installation art and crossing it with heavy metal iconography and sound, he asserts a quasi-dystopian and sometimes tongue-in-cheek humor regarding such production. Murphy鈥檚 immersive sound sculptures each contain independent guitar and synthesizer tracks made by the music collective Unthem in the key of E.

Mired in this music and the implicit demonic associations that came with it, Murphy鈥檚 works bring us down, literally and figuratively to hell, to the dystopic space of contemporary America, the uber-capitalist society that is crumbling inside while outwardly trying to emphasize its superiority globally. We are an empire in decline, and Murphy鈥檚 works ask us to see what we do not want to see, enveloping us within mirrored speakers that project out the diabolus in musica. They reflect back our images and encapsulate us in the loop of dissonant sounds and self-reflection that entrance and entrap us and leave us caught in the realm of quasi-narcissisian wonderment while forcing upon us this dystopic reality.

Tricia Avant

The core of Unthem practice is total immersive listening; Murphy and Matt McGarvey鈥檚 musical relationship has developed through many years of shared attunement, accident, trance and surprise. The point is to get to a state where the sound organizes itself, or at least where there is little to no conscious awareness of who is making what sound, but an intense sensorimotor and emotive connection with the resonating space, in real time. Unthem is about tuning in and dropping out, in order to let hypnotic and ungrounding patterns evolve. This involves a welcoming attitude towards a decisively dark aspect鈥攊n the sense that the unconscious is 鈥渄ark,鈥 and even more, in the sense that what is behind you or in your periphery will never be illuminated like what you focus on. Unthem is periphery music, anti-solo, anti-focal sound. Ambient, but not Muzak ambient. More like police surveillance ambient; radiation ambient, economy ambient. Unthem gets possessed by what is not seen, not known, but real and determining. Unthem opens up and the real world of power floods through, leaving these massive growling traces. It鈥檚 heavy.

Matt McGarvey鈥, Unthem collaborator

 

Artist鈥檚 biography

Gary Murphy, raised in Claremont, CA and influenced by rock music history, has been the exhibitions designer and preparator for the 6V电影网 Museum of Art for the past 15 years. Prior to working at 6V电影网, he had a fabrication studio in which he fabricated works for various artists and arts institutions across Southern California. He is an artist who creates sound based sculptural environments and objects.