The Tower of Destruction – 14 short operas about 14 long operas

Richard Bowers is an installation artist whose primary medium is sound or, more particularly, music inasmuch as the musical parameters of timbre and harmonic evolution are always present in the work and may even find their counterpart in the visual elements as texture, colour and contrasting forms.

The visual content of the installation is catastrophic: ruined European city streets – evoking revolution on the one hand and the destruction that warfare brings on the other; the vast banks of rubble that stand for the barricade, or the debris of bombings, or the coastline of a colony or country of refuge.

The audio content is the human voice in speech and song, from operatic declamation to folksong to choral, from asemic singing to narrative. Each of the 14 operas of the title contain these laments. The words are a rumination on the connection between cultural products – such as opera, cinema, and poetry – and culture more generally.

From the Parisian May 1968 riots to the devastation of the streets of Gaza or Ukraine today, the images are familiar and the ethical question of aestheticising them is at the heart of this installation. Artists must take control of images in order to provide a different eye to that of mainstream media, where manipulation of the spectator is at its most pernicious.

This exhibition runs alongside a small display of photographic prints for sale at nearby Waterloo Tea Rooms. Proceeds from the sale of these will be donated to British Red Cross.

http://www.richardbowers.co.uk

Singers:

• Sarah Dacey
• Angharad van Rijswijk
• Grace Curtis
• Pam Rose Cott
• Kaval player:
• Katie Stevens

The choruses:

(South Wales)

• Maddy Chelmis
• Susan Akins
• Anthony Lee
• Zoe French
• Evangeline JM Orrell
• Inga Burrows
• David Green
• Rob Fokkens and sons
• Rich Parry
• Elen Robert
• Anthony Evans
• Dyfan Evans
• Idris Evans
• Fiona Windsor
• Clare Hobson

(Northern England)

• Aleksandra Karpuik
• Marianne Sice
• Alex Campbell
• Gwilly Edmondez

Video titling and sourcing:

• Anna Bowers
• Technical support:
• Jack Bowers
• Ian Watson