Steve Rowell

Shock + Awe
2006

In collaboration with SIMPARCH

For Year_06 (one of the alternative fairs during Frieze Art Fair in London), SIMPARCH made a garden trellis using electrified cattle fencing to support the artificial English ivy they brought from the U.S.A [made in China]. The trellis took the shape of the B-2 “Spirit” stealth bomber and defined a more intimate zone within the large courtyard of the Mary Ward House. The B-2 is a strategic heavy bomber capable of deploying up to 40,000 pounds of weapons anywhere on the planet undetected. SIMPARCH’s spatial rendering of this ghostly and vaguely sinister form has been grounded and given a human touch — harmless, save for a startling shock if one dared to come in contact with it.

I composed the audio using Shepard Tones to create an unsettling sonic hallucination that seemed to resonate from all directions. With the pitch endlessly rising on one channel and falling on the other, the sound created a loop of infinite tension. This was particularly haunting given the timing of the exhibition—the summer following the July 7, 2005 bombings—when London was already steeped in high anxiety and the constant wail of sirens.