Switching Codes

installation, directional sound sculptures and engraved copper tablets

Sound composition: Spencer Anthony Reid

presented at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, exhibition running from 7th November - 13th February 2021

This project was supported and funded by The Ian Potter Cultural Trust and Copyright’s Agency the Cultural Fund

Exhibition Statement -

Language resembles an electric current; alive with centuries of cultural experiences such as learning, trade, identity, community and ancestral knowledge. 

 Switching Codes unpacks the ongoing influence of Arabic, English and French language based cultural practices in Lebanon and its outcomes on the shared Lebanese cultural identity in Australia, Lebanon, and France. Lebanese official government services, education, and even exhibition statements in museums are presented in these three distinct languages, however the social and daily use of language within the community has evolved into a hybridity of the three languages through the act of code switching. Code-switching has become a significant tool used to unify the varied and constantly shifting cultural interests bound within generations of the French, English and Arabic languages and the influence of the associated cultural and political histories. The fluidity of language and it's fundamental nature of being ever evolving are clearly demonstrated within Lebanon.

Experienced through the copper sculptures, sound compositions saturate space with drones of subtle tonal variations, the composed ambience is a hybrid of the three languages Arabic, French and English. The sound is projected from deep within the forms, directing and diffusing harmonious tones that have swallowed the whole words of three languages although retained the underlying act of code-switching. By removing tri-language based text and speech and replacing it with pure tones, the inclination is towards an eventual outcome of a hybrid language. The hybrid language being the current which carries the new configurations of cultural practices.

 A series of engraved copper tablets present a symbolic return to the earliest known texts, however also refer to communication today with the tablet being a premise for so many technological devices. The tablets are now charged by an electric current, one which also carries all facets of contemporary culture forward, contributing to the stimulation, need and desire for language to evolve. The works invite discourse around multilingual practice today, by exploring the fluidity of language and its relativity to place and time. Future possibilities for the renewal of a broadly spoken universal language are perceived, the notion of collaborative cultural interconnectedness and socially engaged movement shifts the power of the colonising narrative to one of unity.

Sound compositions by Spencer A. Reid

Devices for Listening

engraved and pierced copper

25 x 25 x 40 cm each

Collection of Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria

The two cone forms presented are a stereo listening device, for the proposed purpose of maintaining a connectivity to the collective experiences and knowledge of ancestry, conveyed through imagined languages and sounds of time and place. How can one listen to generations of ancestry before and carry their knowledge forward? 

The cone headset helps maintain a fusion of personal cultural identity and a past cultural voice within the present and future locations for the listener, where perhaps ties become more temporal. The ancient making techniques of piercing and engraving copper are used to evoke the ancestral connection and the insights of antiquity which are reflected in the objects.

Bathe In Light

engraved and pierced copper, hand made olive oil soap

presented at Murray Art Museum Albury

'Bathe in light' is the English translation for Hammam Al-Nouri. Within the hammam for centuries local members living in Tripoli's medina in Lebanon, including my family, literally bathed in both water and light. The light softly penetrated the candle lit ambience of the stone structure through the ornately formed glass inlays in the hammam's dome ceiling. These botanical designs of the glass inlays are reflected in the engraving and in particular the pierced base of the artwork.

The hammam was part of the social infrastructure emphasised in the period of the Golden Age, introducing heightened attention and responsibility focused on the physical body through public daily practices of cleansing. The religious based practice of cleansing also ensured that the community was healthy and resilient to the spread of disease and illness. The artwork which sits upon a column of hand-made soap, is informed by the processes of purification and cleansing, such as the ancient remedies of olive oil soap making, a practice found in Tripoli since millennia. The act of bathing the body to remain clean has once again shifted from the private to the public space. Today the social relevance of the practice of bathing which has been long lasting and engrained across cultures, sheds light on the collective and universal practices required for a collective wellbeing.

© Shireen Taweel 2024