Mark Vernon
Post-chance
"The initial idea was that this collaboration should reflect a dialogue between two artists who have not yet met and that it should express something about the gulf between them, both literally and metaphorically. In the exchange of materials and ideas something is inevitably lost along the way – whether it be misunderstandings due to interpretation, language, slippage of meaning or simply things going astray. From the outset we decided to make a feature out of what might be lost in this interch…
The Dramaturgy of Decay
Step into the ethereal soundscape of Mark Vernon's LP, "The Dramaturgy of Decay." Reminiscent of early fears surrounding recording technology, the album explores ghostly voices, distorted and elusive. Vernon's sonic cinema mirrors the decay found in ruined films, capturing the essence of disappearing places and voices. Amidst themes of death and environmental destruction, the album maintains a delicate balance with humor and familiarity. Through snippets of reworked audio letters, it unveils a s…
Sheet Erosion
Sheet Erosion is the third episode in a series of works based around ideas of audio archaeology and found sounds. The setting this time is the city of Brest in France.
It is composed of field recordings made in early 2020 during the storms Ciara and Desmond plus a batch of found open-reel tape recordings dating from the 70s and 80s. The tapes include domestic home recordings but mostly document the recordist, Michel's tastes in music and radio programmes of the time. Daily life bleeds into these…
A World Behind This World
A composed soundscape created from sounds recorded on location at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden and the surrounding areas. Originally produced for SSW’s radio station Lumsden Live in 2021. This is a condensed, reworked version created specifically for this release. As well as the rural environment, recordings of various machines, equipment and processes from the workshop feature heavily. 'Performed' by Eden Jolly sound sources include the copper guillotine, furnaces, extractor fans, e…
Time Deferred
Psychedelic visions, blackouts, and blinding lights reveal an unusual, sick, and feverish musicality. (…) Hospital-like beeps transmit a subtle uneasiness, as electrodes applied to the brain draw bewildering tracings. And while Athanasia represents the idea of immortality in Greek mythology, here the gods come back from the dead only to ensure us an existence nurtured by the freezing rays of a black sun. - Massimiliano Busti, Blow Up
An Annotated Phonography Of Chance
An Annotated Phonography of Chance expands upon the soundtrack to an uncompleted 16mm film made in collaboration with English filmmaker Martha Jurksaitis and the Portuguese artist duo Von Calhau! The film ‘Nossos Ossos’ was shot largely on location in the Alentejo region of Portugal in 2013. Mark Vernon is a Glasgow-based artist whose work exists on the fringes of sound art, music and broadcasting. At the core of his practice lies a fascination with the intimacy of the radio voice, environmenta…