Bob Levene

2000 – Present

I’ve been working with Rob Gawthrop artist, musician and current acting director of Fine Art at Dartington as Automated Noise Ensemble (ANE) since 2000. Brought together by a common interest in the creative possibilities of sound, how it is produced and how it is perceived. Our work explores noise and music by adapting, re-inventing and constructing musical instruments, devices and structures. These are played or activated electro-mechanically and may be live, recorded or exhibited.

Re-mix of film sound track for CD release with Pete McPartlan 2007

Recreating part of the Harrachov Exchange soundtrack using only things in the same room as my computer.

Matt Hulse invited me alongside a number of artists who use sound to remix the soundtrack of film The Harrachov Exchange A limited edition, numbered multiple (100 copies) was produced other remix artists included Huib Emmer, Max Richter, Peter Fengler, Daniel Padden, Roel Van Der Maaden, Mark Vernon, Peter Max Jakobsen, Maja Borg, Kasko ( Bx / Fonckeltoff / Bobby), Mit Hat, Clever Dog.

Arnolfini, Bristol July 2007

Photos by Carl Newland

I was invited by Elaine Kordy of Spagetti Club to collaborate on a The Darkside project, which would be hosted by Arnolfini in Bristol. The brief was to come up with an event The Darkside a social event where by artists have a chance to meet, talk and have the opportunity to take part in something special. So we came up with Recorded Live.

We asked people to ‘Bring a record, tape or CD. It can be anything music, sound, spoken word …something you have seen live or something you would love to see. Talk about it, perform it, or have it performed for you. How would you evoke those lost live moments? Alternatively, you can come and simply listen over a glass of wine and some hula hoops. The evening is dedicated to all things live and lost.’

The evening was filled with people moving from the social dark studio pack full of comfy sofas, wine and posh nibbles to the ramshakled light studio in which we’d set up a make shift radio studio, they played records and recordings and told stories, memories and anecdotes, all of which were transmitted live back into the dark studio social side.

Performance, 2005 with Espen Jensen and Rob Gawthrop

Myself, Espen Jensen and Rob Gawthrop as Hull Art Lab were asked by arc to devise a small structure that encouraged conversation between two people and that responded to the site of installation. After long discussions and many ideas we decided to build two large megaphones and place them either side of the A63 (the main route for goods from Europe into the UK) that was directly next to arc’s building. Throughout the course of the day myself and Rob and sometimes members of the public (Espen was busy at HAL with Bookville’s Publishathon) would occasionally shout to each other and attempt a conversation. Surprisingly we could just about hear each other. I have gone on to use the Megaphones in my current residency at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Open exhibition / Residency with Helmut Lemke 2003

During a three week open residency at the RED Gallery in Hull, I worked with Helmut Lemke experimenting with ice, water and the freezing and melting process. In week one I was resident in the space whilst Helmut was away in Germany, in week two we were both in the gallery space and in week three Helmut was in the space whilst I left to go to Mexico. During the times apart we would communicate by email.