The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery l Len Lye Centre and Perimeter Editions are excited to announce a major new publication Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound in connection with our exhibition programme.

Join us for an afternoon of lively discussion to launch the publication in Ngāmotu, hosted by our Head of Public Practice and Creative Enquiry, Lleah Smith. More details to follow.

How can sound act as a material force of consequence in the world?

Edited by Anna Briers, Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound is a book that explores sound as a medium, posing questions around the ways artists use deep listening – to audible currents and felt vibrations, sirens and noise – as a means of collective attunement, of knowledge building, and as a tool for critically engaging with a planet in crisis. 

Catalysed by the two-part exhibition curated for the tenth anniversary of the Len Lye Centre, the publication takes a polyphonic approach through the connective tissue of acoustics. It places the work of Len Lye in concert with major contemporary artists from Aotearoa and abroad, pairing essays and expanded texts from leading scholars with intriguing works from the sonic field. Here, sound installations, resonant objects, graphic scores, visual music, kinetic sculptures, field recordings, experimental films, musical composition, choreography, and broader sonic artefacts echo, fracture and accord. 

Considering the ecological, political, technological, and sensory dimensions of sound, Direct Bodily Empathy asks: Can architecture be a musical score? Can the body be an instrument? Can colour be heard? What does a healthy ecosystem sound like? How can sound act as an indigenising gesture? What are the techno-politics of machine listening? And what sirens and warnings are needed to survive the future?

The book includes access to an audio recording of Mia Salsjö’s A Score for the Len Lye Centre performed by musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Featuring work by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Roy de Maistre, Andrew Faleatua, Oskar Fischinger, Simon Ingram, YoungEun Kim, Yona Lee, Len Lye, Machine Listening (Sean Dockray, James Parker, Joel Stern), Ross Manning, Yuko Mohri, Mel O’Callaghan, Mia Salsjö + the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Aura Satz, David Sequeira, Rachel Shearer, Weather Cry (Phil Dadson and James McCarthy); and texts by Anna Briers, Len Lye, Machine Listening, Gascia Ouzounian, Aura Satz, Rachel Shearer and Janine Randerson, Lleah Smith, Mark Peter Wright.

With its inaugural release at the New York Art Book Fair from September 24, the book will be available via Perimeter Books and the Govett-Brewster shop. 

Find the book here.