''Audio Arts'' was a British sound magazine published on

audio cassettes The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

, documenting contemporary artistic activity via artist or curator interviews, sound performances or sound art by artists.

History

The project was launched in 1973 by

Barry Barker Barry Barker is a British Contemporary Art curator and gallerist. He is head of the Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts at the University of Brighton. Previously, Barker worked with Nigel Greenwood and was exhibitions officer at the Institute of ...

and British sculptor William Furlong, born 1944 in Woking, Great Britain. From 1973 to 2006, Audio Arts published 25 volumes of 4 issues of the Audio Arts Cassettes (later releasing LPs and CDs as well). Furlong conducted all interviews until 1996, when Jean Wainwright took the baton as interviewer. Each interview starts with ''I am here with...'', stating artist's name and recording location. Interviewees include:

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

, Anish Kapoor, Joseph Beuys,

Gilbert & George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom), are two artists who work together as the collaborative art du ...

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...

R. Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

, Hermann Nitsch,

Mario Merz Mario Merz (1 January 1925 – 9 November 2003) was an Italian artist, and husband of Marisa Merz. Life Born in Milan, Merz started drawing during World War II, when he was imprisoned for his activities with the ''Giustizia e Libertà'' antifa ...

Gerhard Richter Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary German ...

, Nam June Paik, as well as an interview with

WB Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish litera ...

' daughter and readings by Yeats himself (in Vol.1 Issue #4, 1974). William Furlong was part of a generation of British artists of the 1960s-70s including

, Richard Hamilton,

Bruce McLean Bruce McLean (born 1944) is a Scottish sculptor, performance artist and painter. McLean was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1961 to 1963, and at Saint Martin's School of Art, London, from 1963 to 1966. At Saint Martin ...

or Paul Richards (whose Nice Style performance group was the first pose band) who were consciously moving from traditional art forms to conceptual art, performance, new media, cheap materials, in a dematerialized and process-oriented ethos. Furlong is now a sound artist with sound installations exhibited in Lisbon (''Walls of Sound'', 1998), Bexhill on Sea, Sussex (''Anthem'', 2009), Genillard Gallery, London (''Possibility & Impossibility of Fixing Meaning'', 2009). With the acquisition of the Audio Arts archive by

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 2004 (itself a long-time subscriber to Audio Arts cassettes releases), over 200 boxes of master tapes used to edit the magazine are now secured for future researchers. A selection wa
exhibited
at Tate Britain March–August 2007. The archive is now catalogued, digitized and preserved there. In October–December 2006, a retrospective exhibition curated by Lucia Farinati took place at Rome’
Sound Art Museum
showing a selection of Audio Arts releases and adding a new sound art by Furlong: ''Conversation Pieces'', a reworking/remixing of preview Furlong interviews, making famous interviewees respond to each other by the magic of cut-up. See
SlashSeconds.org
William Furlong's Audio Arts project was featured in the ''See This Sound (Promises in Sound and Vision)'' exhibition, curated by Cosima Rainer, August 28, 2009 to January 10, 2010, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria.See officia
website
/ref>

Footnotes

Sources

Audio Arts digitised and published on the Tate website
* Bill Furlong ''Audio Arts: Discourse & Practice in Contemporary Art'', published by Academy Editions, London, 1994.
Overview and index of the Audio Arts releases

Bill Furlong interview

{{DEFAULTSORT:Audio Arts Audio periodicals Visual arts magazines published in the United Kingdom British contemporary art Music magazines published in the United Kingdom Conceptual art Contemporary art magazines Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct organisations based in the United Kingdom Experimental music Magazines established in 1973 Magazines disestablished in 2006 Non-profit organisations based in the United Kingdom