Planar 1/1

“A wonderful thing about Burroughs/Gyson/Sommerville’s original Dreamachine was the sculptural assemblage of it; a lamp, a piece of cutout card and of course a turntable.”

Haroon Mirza has won international acclaim for installations that test the interplay 
and friction between sound and light waves and electric current. He devises sculptures, performances and immersive installations that pry on one’s awareness of their own experience. An advocate of interference, he creates situations that purposefully cross wires. He describes his role as a composer, manipulating his primary medium, electricity, a live, invisible and volatile natural phenomenon. Electricity is combined with a plethora of materials such as household objects, artworks, video footage, turntables, musical instruments, LEDs and furniture modified to behave differently. In his projects, Mirza works with many collaborators and draws influence from a myriad of disciplines such as music, physics, neuroscience, theology, design and architecture. Processes are left exposed and sounds occupy space in an unruly way, testing codes of conduct and charging the atmosphere. Mirza asks us to reconsider the perceptual distinctions between noise, sound and music, and draws into question the categorisation of cultural forms. 

“All music is organised sound or organised noise,” he says citing Edgar Varèse. “So as long as you’re organising acoustic material, it’s just the perception and the context that defines it as music or noise or sound or just a nuisance” (2013)."

Accolades

Haroon Mirza was born in 1977 in London where he lives and works. He has a BA in Painting from Winchester School of Art, an MA in Design Critical Practice and Theory from Goldsmiths College (2006) and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design (2007). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, Japan (2020); Haüsler Contemporary, Zurich (2019); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (2019); Australian Centre for  Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia (2019); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China (2019); Ikon, Birmingham, UK (2018); Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA (2018); Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark (2018); Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK (2017); LiFE, Saint-Nazaire, France (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada (2017); Summerhall, Edinburgh, UK (2016); Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil (2016); Nam June Paik Center, Seoul, South Korea (2015);
Matadero, Madrid, Spain (2015); Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland (2015); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland (2014); Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Poissy, France (2014); IMMA, Dublin, Ireland (2014); Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, France (2014); The Hepworth, Wakefield, UK (2013); MIMA, Middlesbrough, UK (2013); The New Museum, New York, NY, USA (2012); Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland (2012); University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, USA (2012); Camden Arts Centre,  London, UK (2011) and A-Foundation, Liverpool, UK (2009). His work was included in the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale, China (2012) and the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy (2011), He was awarded the Silver Lion for Most Promising Artist at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. the Northern Art Prize in 2011, the DAIWA Foundation Art Prize in 2012, the Zurich Art Prize in 2013, the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize in 2014, the Calder Art Prize in 
2015 and the COLLIDE International Award in 2017 which has given place to a two- month residency at CERN, Switzerland in the course of 2018. In the spring this same year, Haroon Mirza unveiled ‘Stone Circle’, a large-scale outdoor sculpture commissioned by Ballroom Marfa, Texas, which will remain in the landscape for five years.

Please note, the turntable is no longer able to play records.