Everything I Have Is Yours (2019) by Ben White and Eileen Simpson (Open Music Archive) is commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Contemporary Art Society, University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery through ‘Equal Shares’ 2019. With support from University of Salford, Mbili Foundation and Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Book now
Book NowPast Event
Open Music Archive (artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White) present a live public recording session working with their collaborators across generations as part of their new commission Once Heard Before.
Featuring a new audio-visual DJ set with legendary drummer Bruce Mitchell (The Durutti Column, Greasy Bear, Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias) who is featured in their new film currently on display, Everything I Have Is Yours. For this event Mitchell plays live drums alongside emerging MCs from Spotlight Youth Centre, producing an improvised, inter-generational call-and-response, where material from the exhibition is remixed and reassembled live.
Plus performances by electronic music producer Elsa Hewitt and electronic improvisor David Ross, invited to create live sets assembled exclusively from out-of-copyright sounds ripped from 78rpm discs and 7” singles and digitised from 1950s and early 1960s chart hit records that feature in the exhibition.
Artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White work at the intersection of art, music and information networks, and seek to challenge default mechanisms for the authorship, ownership and distribution of art. Their ongoing project Open Music Archive is an initiative to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings and is a vehicle for collaborative projects exploring the material’s potential for reuse.
Recent projects include: Play it Again! Use it Together for Victoria Gallery & Museum (2018), Auditory Learning for British Art Show 8 (2015-16), Premonition 2037 (2016) for KALEIDOSCOPE Modern Art Oxford, Local Recall at Hallé St Peter’s Manchester (2014), Playhead for Schizophonia at CAC La Synagogue de Delme (2013), ATL 2067 for Flux Night Atlanta (2013), Open House: Divided Estates at Casa Luis Barragán / de_sitio Mexico City (2012), The Brilliant and the Dark at VBKÖ Vienna (2012) and The Women’s Library London (2010), Song Division at Camden Arts Centre (2011), Struggle in Jerash at Gasworks London / Makan Amman (2010), Parallel Anthology at the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), Free-to-air at ICA London (2008) and Cornerhouse Manchester (2007).
