COPENHAGEN.- There is never a dull moment with the art duo Vinyl, Terror & Horror! Their deconstruction of materials and habitual thinking, their remix of uninhibited quantities of hi-fi equipment, used furniture and vehicles, all delivered with the surplus energy, oblique slapstick humour, and exceptional inventiveness that is the hallmark of their art. Vinyl, Terror & Horror – Camilla Sørensen and Greta Christensen – are the most insistent, consistent and experimental artists working with sound, sculpture, fiction and reality on the Danish art scene today.

For almost fifteen years Vinyl, Terror & Horror have been modifying and smashing up the medium of vinyl in every imaginable way. Record players, LPs and loudspeakers have been sawn into pieces and glued back together beyond recognition. They have broken down every system imaginable to invent it anew in unpredictable constellations. The exhibition The Magic of Vinyl, Terror & Horror explores every aspect of their artworks and soundworks. Old works have generated new, conceptually recontextualised for the brand-new context of Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art. The title is sampled from the English organist Reginald Dixon’s record The Magic Of Reginald Dixon (Organ Favourites From "Mr. Blackpool"), a compilation album of tracks and ideas, just like the exhibition itself.

The Magic of Vinyl, Terror & Horror
Based on intricate technology, all the works in the exhibition have a life of their own that we are invited to join. A caravan in the exhibition forms an intimate space: inside and outside, private and public, all at once. Parquet flooring erases and displaces the divisions and differences in level between the galleries. One of the duo’s most ambitious creations is an installation where the sound of broken and manipulated vinyl records has been written as sheet music, which has in turn been recorded by an ensemble comprised of violin, cello, drum, harmonium, panpipe, horn and tenor. In the exhibition two versions of the same composition co-exist. One is the ‘original’ composition of cut-up records as a spatial sequence of sculptures, video sequences and modified musical instruments. The newly recorded composition is then also presented as a video of the ensemble’s first performance of the piece. Both versions are played in sync, so the viewer can go back and forth between the two versions, constantly tracing their different acoustic and spatial configurations.

Primus motor is another new work in the exhibition. A circle of thirty-nine different, second-hand hi-fi loudspeakers playing the sound of the surface of a slipmat together with sounds sampled from films and records: the whistling of the wind, tuning of a radio, car brakes, running steps, as well as waltz and tango LPs. Unlike earlier works by the duo, Inner Dialogues is not narrative based: it is structured by principles of chance, exploring sound as a continuous state, as well as its bodily impact.

The installation Shhhh consists of a moped, a compressor and a video screen with clips from famous films where the characters say “shhhh”. Here the focus is on timing and references to Foley – the studio production of sound effects after the shooting of a film named after Jack Foley in 1914, and still used in film production today.

The Magic of Vinyl, Terror & Horror presents the audience with experiences that challenge any standard decoding and perception of sound, sculpture, timing, fiction and reality by turning our understanding and experience of the world upside down. Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art’s programme of major annual solo shows represents a unique opportunity for us to go all in exhibiting an artistic oeuvre in ambitious, radical formats. It is also an opportunity to introduce our guests to the works of established artists who have much more to offer, but may yet to have a major solo exhibition in Denmark.

Vinyl, Terror & Horror consists of Berlin-based artists Camilla Sørensen (b. 1978) and Greta Christensen (b. 1977). They are both graduates of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, which is where they met and embarked on their collaborative work. Vinyl, Terror & Horror have participated in a range of group exhibitions in Denmark and abroad at the Berlin Biennale (2008), at subvision.kunst.festival.off, Hamburg (2009), Gestures at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (2010), Adaptation at Die Raum, Berlin (2011), Let go of my finger at Audiorama, Stockholm (2012), The Host at Spanien19C, Aarhus (2014), Inside Out at Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen (2015) and Not at Home at Viborg Kunsthal, Viborg (2015). Later this year they are part of Vizura Aperta Festival in Peljesac, Croatia, the concert and exhibition venue Ausland, Berlin, and Tsonami International Art Sound Festival in Valparaiso, Chile.