The Origin of Painting

Disinformation

14th January - 13th March 2011

"People are fascinated by this work - it brings a shiver, a sudden recognition of death, as though we have seen or heard our own ghost".
Jeff Noon, The Independent

"The Origin of Painting" is a large and highly interactive and enjoyable experimental painting exhibit, created by the electronic music and art project Disinformation. Originally shown (under a different title) at The Hayward Gallery in 2000, this exhibit is a sound and light installation that enables visitors to photograph their own life-size shadows, to a soundtrack of live (and surprisingly musical) electromagnetic noise. "The Origin of Painting" also enables gallery and workshop visitors to draw with light directly onto the surface of the painting - producing graffiti, abstracts, portraits etc which are literally incandescent. The exhibit references the mythological origin of painting in the tracing of a lover's portrait around the shadow they project in lamp light onto a wall. "The Origin of Painting" was described as "actively thrilling" by The Financial Times, and as "visually stunning" and "daunting yet engaging" by The Metro. Sci-fi author Jeff Noon wrote that "people are fascinated by this work", while The Guardian wrote that "Disinformation combine scientific nous with poetic lyricism to create some of the most beautiful installations around". The Metro described Disinformation as "the black-ops unit of the avant garde".

"The Origin of Painting" soundtrack amplifies electrical activity in the lighting system used to illuminate the exhibit - sounds which are accompanied by occasional crackles of interference and radio voices picked-up by the electronics used to amplify that signal. "The Origin of Painting" plays alongside the latest version of Disinformation's sound-only exhibit "Rorschach Audio", which mixes simulations of distorted radio "chatter" with the real interference picked up by "The Origin of Painting" soundtrack, to cast ambiguous, distorted voice sounds into the musical sound-pool created by these 2 installations. Finally the exhibition also includes "Fire in the Eye" - a series of exuberant and wildly colourful and energetic camera-less photographs, created by "painting" with 35,000 volt live electric discharges.

Disinformation is a research, installation and sound art project, which, since 1995, pioneered the use of electromagnetic noise from live mains electricity, lightning, industrial, metro, railway and IT hardware, laboratory equipment, magnetic storms and from the sun etc, as the raw material of music and fine-art presentations. Disinformation has recorded 8 commercially published LPs and CDs, performed over 100 concerts, contributed to over 70 gallery exhibitions, and been the subject of 11 solo exhibitions. "Rorschach Audio" is the subject of an AHRC funded Research Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts, hosted by The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at The University of Westminster. "Rorschach Audio" research articles have been published by The MIT Press and Strange Attractor Journal, and "Rorschach Audio" sound works have been commissioned and exhibited by Palais de Tokyo in Paris, MUU Helsinki, and by Goldsmiths College and T1&2 Gallery in London.