GALLERY OPENING TIMES
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James Webb insists he is not a ‘sound artist’ per se but a ‘media artist’ exploring the
‘interplay of all media in our multi-hybridized world’.
The idea of making a work incorporating prayers came to Webb in 1999 upon hearing a story of a group of scientists who were to include information about human culture in their satellite in the event of an encounter by a higher intelligence. Webb wondered what this material might be and further speculated on what it would be like to listen to all the prayers that were being recited at any given moment, and what impression that would give of our world. This idea took on a political dimension as random domestic terrorist attacks in his domicile of Cape Town resulted in heightened media speculation fuelling public anxiety concerning the role of religion and religious difference in post-apartheid South Africa.
The first public presentation of Prayer was in 2002, in which the artist recorded 36 prayers representing a broad cross-section of Cape Town’s faiths. The resulting audio installation presented audiences with an uncharacteristic experience of the city as a culturally rich interdependent landscape.
James Webb considers his works to be open-ended explorations. In Nottingham, his latest version of the piece, comprising a range of prayers recorded from a diverse spectrum of the city’s religious faiths, is presented as a multichannel sound installation. The resultant work, straightforwardly, in real-time and with minimal editing, fuses voice, melody and language to envelop the gallery visitor with the resonant texture of each religion’s hopes, desires and entreaties. The realisation of James Webb’s Prayer in Nottingham has been made possible with the generous support of the curator Anna Douglas and the people of many faiths who have agreed to the recordings of their prayers.