Janek Schaefer, Collecting Connections

About

Schaefer's foundsound collages extend beyond the simple field recording, for example when working with analogue radio in his piece for multiple radios 'Phoenix and Phaedra holding patterns' (2009). At all times combining knowing literal references to contemporary events laced with wit and pathos Schaefer infuses each of his contextual pieces with a nod to Hannah Arendt's ‘Human Condition' (1958). It is the underlying awareness of the fragility of the self in relation to sociopolitical needs which are the foundation of some his more thought provoking interactive works. Janek Schaefer was born in 1970. In 2008 he won the British Composer of the Year Award and the Paul Hamlyn Award for Composers. While studying architecture at the Royal College of Art, he recorded the fragmented noises of a sound activated dictaphone travelling overnight through the Post Office. That work, titled 'Recorded Delivery' 1995 was shown in 'Self Storage' with Brian Eno and Artangel. Janek Schaefer's first soundwork, 'Recorded Delivery',remains one of the wittiest and most interesting in the field of Sound Art. It is elegant, economical and clever, and makes me wish I'd thought of it first." Brian Eno