Location
London, England
The work
"When I was a kid, that was the dream" (10'09")
During a phone conversation about my practice as a musician, I was challenged as to why I 'only' wanted to play the bass guitar and didn't have more seemingly high-minded aspirations. I mentioned a dream I'd had as a young teenager after being mesmerized by Ian Dury and the Blockheads performing 'Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick' on TV, featuring Norman Watt Roy on bass guitar. In the dream, I formed a band with some schoolmates (I played bass) and we appeared live on Top of the Pops to great acclaim. 16 years later, my dream became reality with left-field easy listening revivalists Mike Flowers Pops.
In "When I was a kid, that was the dream" the judgmentally spoken words of the conversation are gradually dissolved into an expanse of low frequency sound that dissipates into space. In so doing, the piece offers resistance to repression of dreams and the devaluation of individual choice.
Artist's biography
Ian Thompson is a musician and sound designer with a research interest in creative applications of holophonic sound.
He is a director of 3D60, a sound design company specializing in 3D audio production for headphones, and the musical director of the Hackney Secular Singers community choir.
Ian lecturers in Professional Media Practice at the University of Greenwich, London.
http://www.3d60.co.uk
http://www.hackneysecularsingers.org.uk
Twitter @ian_tea
Soundcloud
http://soundcloud.com/ian-tea
http://soundcloud.com/3d60