David Chesworth / Sonja Leber
David Chesworth and Sonia Leber create unique multi-channel sound and multimedia installations for a diverse range of arts and cultural spaces. A particular focus is the creation of ‘sonic event spaces’ in the public domain. Permanent public artworks include ‘5000 Calls’, installed in the 4.5 hectare exterior public space surrounding Stadium Australia at Sydney Olympic Park and ‘The Master’s Voice’, created for City Walk in Canberra. Projects include
works for Millennium Riverwalk in Cardiff, Shoemaker’s Footbridge in Slovenia and Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. They were recently commissioned to create Reiterations a sound artwork for Plus Factors at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
David Chesworth’s distinctive compositions and sound-art installations have been performed and exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. Major festivals which have featured his work include Ars Electronica, Festival D’Automne de Paris, Edinburgh Festival, BAM’s Next Wave Festival in New York, Bang on a Can Marathon, Sydney Biennale and Adelaide Festival.
Sonia Leber’s filmwork has been exhibited widely at film festivals and contemporary art spaces including Germany’s Oberhausen International Film Festival (in competition); Madrid Week of Experimental Cinema; the Aurora Australis tour of galleries in Canada; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; ATOM Awards (finalist); Experimenta, Melbourne; Perth Institute of
Contemporary Art; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Australian Perspecta at Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Recent projects reveal Chesworth and Leber’s fascination with the human voice, particularly the “shape†of the voice and the “non-speech†aspects of voice found in different contexts within the everyday. The artists make lengthy close-proximity voice recordings at hundreds of real-world locations from which they isolate the condensed expressive moments for their
artworks – inventive voice-play, half-words, commands, and melodic ornamentation formed unwittingly through repetition and habit.
David Chesworth / Sonja Leber participates in