Lawrence English is media artist, composer and curator based in Australia. Working
across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work prompts questions of
field, perception and memory. English utilises a variety of approaches including live
performance, installation and found sound/vision to create works that generate subtle
transformation of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the
edge of perception.
For over a decade, English’s audio investigations have traversed a divergent path
where musical and environmental sources are granted equal focus. His work calls into
question the established relationships of sound and structure – field recordings and
musical materials work in unison, acting as suggestive devices. Rather than prescriptive,
English’s sound work calls for the listener to construct their own narratives and
impressions based on their personal histories and experiences. Published widely on
respected imprints including Touch, 12K and Winds Measure, English’s work is sculpted
and overwhelmingly intricate. The Wire noted his ‘use of space and silence is
remarkable’, and U.S. sound journal Signal To Noise described the Ghost Towns work as
‘extraordinarily gorgeous modern music concréte’.
As a producer English has completed numerous projects with artists including Tujiko
Noriko (U, Blurred In My Mirror), Ben Frost (Theory Of Machines), Tenniscoats (Totemo
Aimasho, Temporacha) and The Rational Academy (Swans). He has also completed
commissioned compositions for acclaimed avant-circus troupe Circa, various theatre
ensembles and has worked as a sound designer in collaboration with artists including
Australian visualist Craig Walsh.
English’s installation and gallery practice is concerned predominately with challenging
the understandings and expectations of site specificity, sound and media. His 2008 ‘Trio
For Objects’ exhibition presented three discrete sound installations (kinetic, prepared
and sculptural) which when experienced in unison created a ‘related sound field’. By
contrast, the 3-screen video installation Ghost Towns, seeks to create an abstract ‘virtual
map’ of remote Australian spaces. In 2006 English produced a series of sound art works
specifically for the deaf and hearing impaired under the title ‘Silence Listening’. These
works were amongst the first of their kind in the world, exploring and examining the
notions of isolation and sonic interaction within these oft-marginalized communities.
Outside of his recording and art commissions, Lawrence English curates a number of
ongoing sound and media programs including Mono at the Institute Of Modern Art and
Syncretism at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts. He produces the annual
Room40 festival Open Frame (in Australia and London) and co-produces a number of
other festivals including Sound Polaroids, Liquid Architecture and Frankly!. He continues
to curate numerous conceptually driven art projects including Melatonin – Meditations
On Sound In Sleep (for Next Wave Festival), Airport Symphony (for the Queensland Music
Festival), Small Scores (for Valley Fiesta) and Audible Geography (for University Of
Tasmania). He has presented on radio as part of Triple J’s Soundlab program and he
continues to produce an extensive range of radio documents and sound works for
programs such as the BBC’s World Service. His critical writings can be found in journals
such as The Wire, Signal To Noise, Paris Transatlantic, Cyclic Defrost, and numerous
online outlets.
English’s imprint and multi-arts organisation ::ROOM40:: (www.room40.org) maintains a
steady release schedule from an eclectic array of Australian and international artists.


Selected Discography

2001 – Map51F9 (IAG)
2002 – David Toop, Scanner, I/O3 – A Picturesque View, Ignored (room40)
2003 – Object – Pandemic (Quatermass)
2004 – Ghost Towns (room40)
2004 – Overland (Naturestrip)
2004 – Transit (Cajid)
2005 – Limnology (Autumn)
2005 – Plateau with Ai Yamamoto (Phonostique)
2005 – Happiness Will Befall (Cronica)
2005 – Blurred In My Mirror with Tujiko Noriko (room40)
2006 – Suikinkutsu (Autumn)
2006 – One Plus One with Philip Samartzis (room40)
2007 – For Varying Degrees Of Winter (Baskaru)
2007 – Object – Asobi (Sensory Projects)
2007 – Merola Shoulders with Domenico Sciajno (Phonostique)
2008 – Kiri No Oto (Touch)
2008 – Studies For Stradbroke (Winds Measure)
2008 – U with Tujiko Noriko and John Chantler (room40)
2008 – HB with Francisco Lopez (Baskaru)
2009 – It’s Up To Us To Live (Sirr)
2009 – A Colour For Autumn (12K)

Selected Installations/Exhibitions

2001 – Medi@ Terra, Frankfurt
2002 – Sound Spaces, Perth
2002 – Variable Resistance, San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art
2002 – Invisible Cities, Belfast Festival At Queens
2003 – Sounds Like, Performance Space, Sydney
2003 – Inna (as part of PrimeTwo at Queensland Art Gallery)
2004 – On Conflict And Agreement, Barcelona
2004 – SIGHT Site, Tokyo Japan
2004 – Isentropic Process, SOOB, Brisbane
2005 – Ghost Towns, Artspace, Auckland
2005 – Window Standpoint Series
2006 – Isentropic Process 1-100Hz, The Window, QPAC, Brisbane
2006 – Silence Listening, QSM, Brisbane
2006 – LEFRAUSNZNWSD1/2, Next Wave Festival, Melbourne
2007 – Re: Collections, State Library Of Queensland
2007 – Triumvirate, Old Museum Of Brisbane with Kim Demuth + Eluned Lloyd
2007 – Bathe, as part of Grey Water IMA with Toshiya Tsunoda
2008 – Trio For Objects (MSSR)
2008 – Three Part Harmony For Architecture Huddersfield Cont. Music Festival, UK
2009 – A Remote Echo, Metro Arts
2009 – 12 Tone Galaxy Of Bells, Condomine Weir

Selected Curated Exhibitions

2002 – Biospheres: Secrets Of The City (with Scanner), REV festival, Brisbane Powerhouse
2003 – Treatment, Institute Of Modern Art, Brisbane
2004 – Melatonin, Next Wave, Melbourne
2004 – Gravities Of Sound, MAAP, Singapore
2005 – Incidental Amplifications, Queensland Music Festival (with Lloyd Barrett)
2006 – On Isolation, University Of Tasmania
2007 – Airport Symphony, Queensland Music Festival
2008 – Audible Geography (produced for Australian Institute Of Geographers)

Selected Media

On A Colour For Autumn 2009
** Lawrence English is a genius at creating atmospheric music and A Colour For
Autumn is just exceptional… - Lycanthropy

On It’s Up To Us To Live 2009
** Unquestionably absorbing stuff. – Brainwashed

On Kiri No Oto 2008
** It is a rare thing to hear an album that is so engaging and stimulating… –
Brainwashed
**Intelligent drones from an established and now highly influential figure on the
minimalist scene... essential. – White Lines

On Studies For Stradbroke 2008
**’the use of space and silence is remarkable…’ – The Wire

On For Varying Degrees Of Winter 2007
**This album is a discussion of the experience of winter seen from many angles and I
think it engages the listener while communicating the atmosphere of the season very
well. – Heathen Harvest
**Enveloping, swelling, quietly fizzing with transluscence, the air grainily alive around it,
a fascinatingly varying English winter awaits those who would enter. – E/I Magazine
**’For Varying Degrees Of Winter’ is almost perfect. – Touching Extremes

On Happiness Will Befall 2006
**A picture may be worth 1000 words, but in the right hands ambient music can reach
an even higher plane of communication. Mike Wolf, Time Out New York
**A polar journey between the harsh yet compelling sounds of dedicatedly minimalist
computer music and the subtle organicism of post-classical instrumentalists. Ben Bollig,
Noripcord.com

On Transit 2005
**English softens all the edges and extends particular timbres into oceanic swells that
ebb and flow in conjunction with the haunted melodies that lumber in the distance, at
times resembling the gaping spaces of Thomas Koner and at others the incidental music
of Tarkovsky's Stalker. Jim Haynes, The Wire
**A seductive, beautiful suite - Jonathan Marshall, Realtime

On Ghost Towns 2004
**Extraordinarily gorgeous modern musique concréte. Signal To Noise
**An amazing and evocative recording, with English creating his own impossible Ghost
Town. Bob Baker Fish, Inpress Magazine

On Naturestrip’s Overland 2003
**[English’s A Summer Crush is] a veritable piece of cinema for the ear. Stylus Magazine

On Map51F9 2002
**Seventeen minutes of shimmering heat haze electronics and processed field
recordings unfold gently, swallowing the surrounding environment. Christopher Murphy,
Fallt Array

On Calm 2001
**The field recordings are layered deep into these textures, creating an evocative,
dissociated, dreamlike quality. Mitchell Whitelaw, Realtime