Amon Tobin / Tessa Farmer – ‘Isam’ Exhibition In The Crypt

Either I’ve grown up and found a new appreciation for art or it’s gotten a whole lot better in the last 24 months. Taking place at The Crypt Gallery underneath the St. Pancras Church, the exhibition is running from 26th of May tot he 3rd of June, and is the collaborative effort of Ninja Tune musician Amon Tobin and London based visual artist Tessa Farmer.

Tobin’s just released Isam, an album in which he “started with field recordings but then synthesised the sounds and built them into actual playable instruments”. I’ve not had a chance to listen to it by itself, but within The Crypt it was sounding dope.

The installation isn’t quite the physical embodiment of what the new LP is, but more an extension of ideas from it, collaborated upon with Tessa. It’s all about what’s real and what can be imagined but with a very natural world feel to it; a dark and scientific vibe with “control over nature” sitting at it’s core. A sort of jack skeleton approach to Da Vinci insect sketches brought to the modern world in 3D. The organic feel of the sounds, setting and pieces (including a very cool short video on loop) are something I thought were quite inspiring and was really in to.

Press release below.

via Ninja Tune
To mark the release of Amon Tobin’s highly anticipated new album ‘ISAM’, due for release this May, the electronic pioneer has come together with highly respected Saatchi Collection artist Tessa Farmer on a revolutionary, collaborative installation.

‘Control Over Nature’ will combine Amon Tobin’s sound design and elements of the forthcoming album, alongside Farmer’s trademark sculptures (constructed from bits of organic material, such as roots, dead insects and bones). Hovering with a rarefied, jewel-like beauty,Tessa’s tiny spectacles resound with a theurgist exotica: their specimen forms evolve as something alien and futuristic.

The collaboration perfectly captures the themes surrounding ISAM: sensory deprivation, disorienting situationism and the mechanization of natural things.

“There is common ground between Tessa and I” says Amon, “we’re both re-arranging and augmenting natural elements to make something imagined but tangible. We are both exploring new uses for familiar materials, or in Tessa’s case familiar creatures. I’m trying to take an objective approach to all my source material, whether it’s field recording or synthesis based or a mixture of the two. I’m treating it all as musically/creatively relevant and useful.”

Tessa’s work will feature heavily throughout the ISAM campaign as a whole, with the album artwork being dedicated to her creatures: “ISAM is beautiful, surprising, playful, disturbing and unnerving at times. It has an incredible energy, to which I am responding to instinctively, conjuring scenes that reflect the varying moods of the tracks. The scenes are action packed, but frozen in motion – to be animated by the viewer’s imagination and Amon’s music.”