artworks – Guy Livingston

Installations

Posted on April 30, 2019January 26, 2021 by GPL

media art/installations

in his new series, “listen (to) the untitled 6.3”, multimedia artist Guy Livingston explores the cityscape via sound. In New York, nearly everyone is walking down the street, lost in their own sonic world – listening to their own soundtrack on their own headphones; or talking to their own family or friends.

But what if you listened to someone else’s life or music? This is the challenge Livingston takes on with his listen to the untitled series.

Random residents stop on their way to work or play, and listen to the urban furniture: traffic cones, mailboxes, lampposts.

Each object tells a story; alternating with music inspired by the streetscape. No two objects are alike.

Listen to the City Series: **Silent Listening Walk** (for art and design students from the Royal Academy) The Hague

Boxes

Posted on April 30, 2019June 22, 2020 by GPL

Influenced by the work of artist Joseph Cornell, writer Vladimir Nabokov, and philosopher Walter Benjamin; Guy Livingston has been building self-contained boxes for several decades, but very slowly. Most of these are evanescent, and only exist long enough to be filmed and then recycled. One was sent to Paris and did not come back. And one is going to the moon.

Frequently these boxes use a multimedia approach, as with his one-minute videos. The music for each of these miniature films is by a different composer. The videos were designed and produced in Den Haag by Guy Livingston and “Newt Hinton”. They were filmed in Amsterdam. All the boxes incorporate movement in addition to the musical soundtrack; the potential energy of inanimate objects is explored in a playful or sinister way. Balls roll back and forth inexplicably; wood is consumed by violent drilling; objects burst into flame; and old-fashioned turntable begins to smoke as it plays a mysterious record…