In 2008 artist Alan Dunn started freely distributing audio artworks by students on compilation CDs alongside material from John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Carol Kaye, David Bowie, Yoko Ono and Bill Drummond. Mixing spoken word, experimental noise, found sound, field recording and popular music, each CD is also an artwork, design object and essay. Each takes a particular theme as its starting point, such as “Artists' uses of the word revolution”, “Grey is the colour of hope”, “A history of background”.

In this workshop Dunn discusses the concepts behind the Cantaudio series, as well as more practical issues of how to clear copyright, raise funds and distribute audio projects. Participants are invited to bring their own audio pieces to add to the mix.

At the workshop Dunn also presents excerpts from his latest project, Adventures in Numb4rland, featuring contributions from Clinic, Chris Watson, Diamanda Galas, Carsten Nicolai, Tocotronic and The Residents alongside new works from students, YouTube amateurs, Dunn’s own children and archival material.

Listen to an excerpt from Adventures in Numb4rland →

Alan Dunn

(1967) was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago. In 1990 he initiated the Bellgrove Station Billboard Project in Glasgow, presenting 17 new hand-painted posterworks from fellow art students such as Douglas Gordon, alongside writers, urban designers, established artists and an aromatherapist. From 2001 to 2007 he was the lead artist on the Internet TV project tenantspin, originally set up by FACT, Superflex and Liverpool Housing Action Trust in 1999. In 2008 Dunn started freely distributing audio artworks by students alongside material from John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Carol Kaye, David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Lydia Lunch, Kaffe Matthews and Bill Drummond under the name CANTAUDIO with the name drawing parallels with the Scottish word ‘canny’, the ‘can do’ attitude of punk and the secret ‘cant’ languages. He is based in Liverpool and currently lectures part-time in Contemporary Art Practices at Leeds Metropolitan University.

http://www.alandunn67.co.uk/