Head in a Bell, Scott Myles at GoMa

3/5 stars

I think ‘Head in a Bell’ is less exciting than the title, with a few pieces that don’t quite fit in a show that dwells on spatial interconnectivity. I desperately want the bell my head is in to be ringing, but it feels like it was rung a very long time ago, and I’m left with a simple reverberation. The sound of the air flowing through the space isn’t natural enough, it is overly controlled by the synthesiser in the middle of the space and ends up vaguely spooky. The fact that the microphones can't hear people talking in the plant room and couldn’t pick me up when I spoke near them makes the whole idea of circulating sound feel inconsequential. Then again, to amplify the airflow into the sound of a bell all around you, which no other sound permeates, could be something very interesting, but it’s not followed through with dramatic effect. The painting of the plant room feels unnecessary, and lacks the visual language of the rest of the show. 

Some elements of this show do work well: I like the irony of the flattened coins becoming an artwork, likely worth far more than their value, transformed to circulate in a different space. The same concept is true for the sound of the air, put through the random membrane of synthesisers and mutated to go beyond what it normally does. However, The Gonzales-Torres posters feel retro, stylized and decorative, not offering any kind of challenge to those that take them, just a ‘cool’ poster to hang in the backdrop. The way the show addresses the circulation of objects, people, and sound within it are certainly interesting, but my connection to these elements was never quite there.