Erstlaub

Biography

David Fyans is an artist based in Dundee, Scotland where he is currently completing the final year of a BA (hons) in Time Based Art and Digital Film. He deals in sound, performance, installation, text and still and moving images to convey the conceptual ideas behind his work His main influences lean towards subconscious interventions, mysticism, psychology, psychogeography, extra-dimensional and liminal spaces and ruminations on time and our understanding of it.

David Fyans has also released a number of conceptually weighted albums including a 40 minute audio-visual piece, both digitally and in hard copy, under the Erstlaub alias on Broken20, Highpoint lowlife, Moving Furniture and CONV and has performed in Germany, London and Scotland.

Most recently, Fyans has been commissioned to produce soundworks and thematically specific performances for exhibitions/screenings including the construction, composition and performance of a graphical score based on books from the Centre for Artists’ Book archive at the DCA, Dundee for DJCAD Exhibitions Department and the construction and performance of themed post atomic retro-futurist musical interventions for the London screening of Atom Town, a film by Gair Dunlop at Arts Catalyst in Clerkenwell in June 2011. His entheogenic soundwork ‘Climbing The Peacock’s Tail’ was selected as part of the Uncanny Sound group show and exhibited at Tactic, Cork in September 2011. The Persistence of Decay, a 2 hour long, process driven, textural piece has been selected for inclusion in radioCona’s Radio Arts Space in Slovenia.

Fyans is also responsible for founding the National Tropospherics Commission artists collective and produces work under a variety of pseudonyms for it in addition to curating the work of other artists within the collective. He is also Art Director and assists in the co-running of Broken20, a Glasgow based record label which releases both physical and digitally via channels such as itunes, Boomkat, Zero”, etc.

Artist Statement

I work in a variety of media to communicate my ruminations on time and space in relation to the human psychological condition. The majority of my work centres around the construction of sound using modular platforms as a symbolic link between inner and outer spaces. I often intertwine visual elements with this soundwork and have experience with both still and moving photography, and am particularly interested in liminal and extra-dimensional spaces, non-linear narrative, reconfiguring methods of sequencing and the communication of stillness and space as a counterpoint to the often frenetic world we inhabit.

My work and practice is largely influenced by a collection of esoteric fields including psychogeography, mysticism, psychology, psychoacoustics and apophenia among others.

I have an belief in art as the manipulation of waves; of time, light and sound, and believe that certain combinations and configurations can have resonant effects on both the creator and the participants.

Performances/Commissions/Screenings

January 2010  – Performance/Screening of Sleepwalking into the Underworld at the Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh

August 2010 – Screening of selected works at -SCAPE at the Alchemy Film Festival, Hawick

August 2010 – Performance of The Last Few Seconds Before Sleep at the N_ilk festival in the Botanic Gardens, Dundee

February 2011 – Performance of Inverted Memory as part of the EMAF Screening Tour at DCA, Dundee

March 2011 – Re(Collections) Part II, an interactive soundwork sourced from redundant museum artifacts as part of Collections Part II, Cooper Gallery, Dundee

May 2011 – The Breath between Marks – the construction and performance of a graphical score from elements taken from the Centre for Artists Books, DCA, Dundee

June 2011 – Distress Transmission – a conceptual audio installation at Leith Festival Art Expo, Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh

July 2011 – Construction and performance of themed post atomic retro-futurist musical interventions for the London screening of Atom Town, a film by Gair Dunlop at Arts Catalyst, Clerkenwell

July 2011 – The Ghost Other – Audio design, live treatment and performance accompanying Joss Allen and Joanna Foster’s piece ‘A Slip Of The Other’s Tongue’. Performed as part of the D-Air Festival in Dundee

September  2011 – Climbing The Peacock’s Tail – An entheogenic audio sculpture selected for the Uncanny Sound group show at Tactic, Cork.

October 2011 – Performative Lecture – Interventions on the theme of Atom Town with Gair Dunlop at the Shared Imagination Symposium, DCA, Dundee.

December 2011 – Radio Arts Space, radioCona, Slovenia – The Persistence of Decay selected to be played in ŠKUC gallery Ljubljana, FM broadcast, internet streaming and as part of the Pixxelpoint festival between the 7th – 15th of December.

Links

www.erstlaub.co.uk/dfyans

www.erstlaub.co.uk/ntc

www.soundcloud.com/erstlaub

www.soundcloud.com/dfyans

www.vimeo.com/erstlaub

www.flickr.com/erstlaub