Bloc Billboard: Luke Walsh
15 September 2022 - 10 January 2023
Free & Open to All
Bloc Projects recent graduate billboard Visual to Sound to Visual by Luke J Walsh
Tap on the different drain covers to hear site-specific sounds!
One in three of our annual Bloc Projects’ Billboards presents the work of recent fine art graduates from Sheffield Hallam University. For our final commission of 2022, we are excited to launch Visual to Sound to Visual, Bloc Projects’ first interactive audio-visual billboard by artist Luke Walsh.
For this project, Luke homed in on the grid-like patterns of drain covers dotted throughout the urban landscape. Understanding them as sonic and rhythmic cues, he photographed drain covers across Sheffield, took field recordings in these locations and processed the sounds through a sequencer. The result is a series of complex, micro-loops that you can play on your phone as you view the image.
Says Luke, ‘The only parameters I set were to use found patterns and sounds local to the drain covers. It is interesting to let other people’s design or incidental conversations guide the work. The loops can be played on top of each other and can sometimes be quite noisy and chaotic.’
Special thanks to Autumn Ryder for supporting Luke on the project.
Luke Walsh works with a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, photography and installation to create works which also explore light, video and sound. He is interested in the translation between visual and sonic media. Luke is beginning his MFA studies at Sheffield Hallam University, where he also gained his BFA in 2021.