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Float: a clay sound system

Harrison was selected to participate in Jerwood Makers Open 2011 by Emmanuel Cooper, Siobhan Davies and Jonathan Watkins. Four artists were awarded £7,500 by Jerwood Visual Arts to produce new work for exhibition at the Jerwood Space, London and national tour.

Float was inspired by a scene from Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo, in which Caruso records are played from a steamer on the Pachitea River to communicate with native Peruvians, before obsession overcomes logic and the ship is hauled over the mountains. Bootleg and ceramic records of the soundtrack are played through a wood and clay sound system (8.2x3.2x1.2m), consisting of 26 DIY cabinets with 18” drivers, filled with porcelain. The outsides were covered with 1000 piezo transducers, acting as tweeters and pickup mikes. Float was a culmination of earlier, small-scale events involving clay and sound equipment exploring, in public experiments, the extent to which one can change matter through electrically produced sound waves. These included the performance piece 'Blue Monday/white label' shown in Testing Grounds at Bargate Gallery, Southampton; Landmark, Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway; and The Big Rip Off, Camden Arts Centre in 2010.

The exhibition opened at the Jerwood Space, London and toured to The Naughton Gallery, Queenʼs University, Belfast and Dovecote Studios, Edinburgh. The catalogue included an essay by Stephen Bayley. Float was reviewed in the visual arts periodicals: Aesthetica; This Is Tomorrow; Ceramic Review; Crafts magazine; and featured in an interview with Penny Smith on the Radio 2 Arts Show. Subsequently, invitations to speak about the work included Formed Thoughts - Material and Controlled Adventure, with Dr Tanya Harrod and Studio Glithero at the Jerwood Space in 2012; and lectures at Ceramics Practice as Research, BCB Symposium, University of Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent; at the University of Westminster; Linz University, Austria; Hereford College of Art; and Plymouth College of Art.