Nathan Gray - Artist's Statement and Bio
Gray's works use the voice as a medium and take the form of lecture-performances, radio plays, narratives, and rumours. These works expand the sonic possibilities of the spoken word by means of microphone technology and digital processing, often demonstrating scientific or perceptual phenomena using the voice as an example with curious, sometimes humorous conclusions.
Gray's exploration of experimental oratory includes hosting The Weirding Module, a radio program that explores the spoken word in contemporary art and experimental music, co-curating The Mouthfeel concert series with Lucinda Dayhew and Rogue Syntax: Primer, an audio series featuring Makiko Yamamoto, Danni Zuvela, and linguist Dr. Rikke Bundgaard-Nielsen a podcast series that explores linguistics from an artistic perspective.
His 2014 multi-channel video installation Species of Spaces was shown in the 19th Biennale of Sydney and was the winner of both the Substation Contemporary Art Prize and Substation People’s Choice Awards. It is now part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
His 2012 Tarrawarra Biennale sculptural/performance work entitled Treatise pages 77 and 131 was reshown and performed in 2017 at The Score at Ian Potter Museum of Art and my work Score for Dancewas shown at Open Archive in 2011 and ACCA in 2014.
His film works have been shown at Close Up Cinema in London, Christchurch City Art Gallery, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Auckland and City Gallery in Wellington during 2016 and presented by Liquid Architecture (Australia), The Audio Foundation (Auckland) and North Projects (Christchurch).
He has had numerous solo shows including Work with Me Here, 2015 at RMIT DesignHub, Things That Fit Together, 2014 at Utopian Slumps, Theorist Training Camp, 2012, at Westspace and ACTS, 2012, at Utopian Slumps.
In 2015 he curated the exhibition The Object as Score, based on his masters thesis of the same name. He attended residencies in Japan, Brazil, New Zealand, Indonesia, regional Australia, and more recently several residencies in Germany.
His recent performance lectures have toured to Taiwan, Greece, Austria, Germany, France, Norway, Poland and Australia in 2017-18 and writings have appeared in Un Magazine, the book Assuming Boycott published by the New School / Vera List and Writing & Concepts published by Art + Australia 2018.