Audio Arts at Tate: Retrospective solo exhibition

As the most extensive display of Audio Arts to date covering the period from 1973 to 2006, the exhibition explores the relationships between an artist’s practice, the changing concept of an archive, and includes the documents, tapes, images equipment and other related material of this ongoing research project. The underlying intention of the project is to foreground the artist’s account of his or her thinking, ideas and intentions in relation to practice. Furlong has always considered Audio Arts to be an integral and symbiotic part of his practice which he describes as ‘a recorded space for contemporary art’. The long term aim of the project is to explore if an archive of sound can act as a primary form of contemporary art history delivered directly from the artist without the ‘distancing filters’ of a ‘third hand’ printed version of events. Held in Room 38 as part of the Tate’s ‘re-hang’ in March 2007, 5 flat top vitrines containing elements of the archive along with 3 plinths and wall displays were included, as well as 4 x 80 minute CD’s containing up to 320 minutes of Audio Arts recordings drawn from 4 decades of activity. Visitors were able to make selections for listening on headphones positioned on 4 benches in the Gallery. The complete collection of Audio Arts cassettes and CD boxes were displayed. This process of foregrounding the artist's account of their thinking via an interview process is used by Furlong in the publication ‘Making Art Work’ by Patsy Craig, ISBN 1904563066 (Trolley Ltd, 2003) focusing on artists from the Mike Smith Studio, London.