Michael Benneyworth

Biography:

Weaned on ¼” magnetic tape and raised with shortwave radio, it was inevitable that sound creation and manipulation would be part of Michael Benneyworth’s life. His sound art works are concerned with ways of creating sound, sound structures, and the sounds themselves rather than more traditional song forms. Michael works with electronics and computers but also builds acoustic instruments ranging from cigar box guitars to sound generating installations. He performs with a variety of experimental music groups, is a founding member of Victoria Phonographers Union and has been part of the Unity Drummers and Singers family for the last eleven years. As a composer Michael was chosen as one of the award winners for Audiospace 2007.

Current projects include digitizing the family audio history on the ¼” tape mentioned earlier and planning the creation of a series of pieces relating to the work “guthanna ón ceo” recently exhibited as part of Art Poem Art Experiment, Camosun College, April 2016.

guthanna ón ceo

A printed sonograph of a poem being read aloud is framed with a lower case that contains a hand cranked music box movement. The music box reads a paper tape printed with the same sonograph which is used to generate aleoteric melodies. The large sonograph can be scanned with Phonopaper software, available for Android and iOS devices. This allows the audience to play back the poem.