Orchestral Manoeuvres: See Sound. Feel Sound. Be Sound

ArtScience Museum, Singapore presents Orchestral Manoeuvres: See Sound. Feel Sound. Be Sound.

To mark its tenth anniversary ArtScience Museum has brought sound and art together through the work of 32 artists and composers from eight countries, who explore sound, sonic landscapes and music in the form of sculpture, installation, and video. The exhibition is itself a complex soundscape, an auditory and visual journey that extends the notion of what sound and music is, and how it can be experienced.

“The exhibition is not a quiet experience. It is not a concert. It is not a performance or any sort of recital. It is instead a form of curatorial orchestration, with different stories, voices, and historical sounds overlapping, as visitors make their way through the galleries.” Honor Harger, Executive Director of ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands.

Orchestral Manoeuvres features sound-art projects, early music notation, experimental scores, noise-making sculptures and video installations.  One of the highlights of the exhibition is the first presentation in Southeast Asia of the landmark artwork, The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium,” by Thomas Tallis 1556), 2001 by Janet Cardiff. 

“Most of us are swimming in an ocean of sound, most of which we tune-out or disregard.  This exhibition invites visitors to listen differently, to tune into the unheard and to the neglected sounds of our world. While some artists create artworks that make sound visible, others explore sound from the perspective of its opposite: silence. Other artists expose and subvert the rules and grammar of music – how it’s written or could be written, how it is interpreted and how it might be composed or created now.  Others use the human voice – the oldest means of sound-making – as a way to articulate ideas of community, society and the challenges that arise when the human voice is muted. Whatever journey you take through Orchestral Manoeuvres, music will never sound the same again.” Adrian George, Director, Exhibitions, exhibition curator, ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands.

Artists and composers include Nevin Aladağ (Germany), Song-Ming Ang (Singapore), Cory Arcangel (USA), John Cage (USA), Janet Cardiff (Canada), Chen Zhen (China), Phil Collins (UK), Hsiao Sheng-Chien (Taiwan), Jeremy Deller (UK), Toshi Ichiyanagi (Japan), Idris Khan (UK), Zul Mahmod (Singapore), Robert Morris (USA), Carsten Nicolai (Germany), Hannah Perry (UK), Pauline Oliveros (USA), Yoko Ono (Japan/USA), Hannah Perry (UK), RAW Art Space (Malaysia), Luigi Russolo (Italy), Christine Sun Kim (USA), Timm Ulrichs (Germany), Gillian Wearing (UK), Peter Weibel (Germany), Samson Young (Hong Kong) and Ashley Zelinskie (USA).

We are grateful to all artists and lenders without whom we could not have been able to realise this exhibition.

Curated by Adrian George with Amita Kirpalani and Honor Harger

View a virtual tour of the exhibition here.