An Interview with Jones/Bulley
About Jones/Bulley: James Bulley (b. 1984) and Daniel Jones (b. 1983) are an artist duo whose collaborative practice explores the boundaries of sound art, music, and process-based composition. Their work draws on systems and patterns from the world around us as ways of organising sound, creating a reciprocal relationship between the two: using sound as a way to illuminate our understanding of the world, and using natural processes as a way to deepen our approaches to composition. Jones/Bulley’s critically acclaimed work has been shown at venues including the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican, the Museum of Science and Industry, Aldeburgh Music, the Old Royal Naval College, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Design Museum.
«Our work is fundamentally a social practice: at some level, all of our pieces are founded upon communities and ecologies.»
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re currently in the early stages of developing a new landscape work exploring cloud formations, which naturally emerged from some of the thinking about atmospheres that underpinned our first piece, Variable 4. We are also researching new methods for sensing spatially-distributed data in forest ecosystems, which will allow us to paint a more nuanced portrait of ecological activity in future editions of Living Symphonies.
What is your background?
We both have interdisciplinary backgrounds spanning music composition, fine art, technology and spatial interaction, and met as postgraduate students at Goldsmiths, University of London.
How did you start/become interested in sound art and producing sound installations informed by science and technology?
We share an interest in exploring different ways in which the ecological forces and systems that surround us can be expressed in spatial artworks, and giving representation to the agencies of the more-than-human world. Our first installation, Variable 4, was an outdoor sound work, conducted by real-time weather conditions, that expresses the changing dynamics of atmospheric conditions in wild, remote places.
How is your artistic/scientific work generally perceived? Have you encountered any unexpected impact or reaction from your work?
We are always grateful for the generosity of our audiences, especially when they have travelled to remote places, in all sorts of weather, to experience our work. What we found particularly unexpected was that people engage for longer periods of time than you might otherwise expect. We often find that visitors stay for many hours, and return on different days to experience changes in conditions over time.
«We are privileged to frequently work with communities of citizen scientists, local experts and professional researchers, whose passion and knowledge allows us to expand our understanding and travel beyond our boundaries as artists.»
What is the meaning of community in your work?
Our work is fundamentally a social practice: at some level, all of our pieces are founded upon communities and ecologies. In Living Symphonies, for example, the ecosystem itself is the orchestrating force behind the composition; in Maelstrom, an unseen network of global contributors form the fabric of the work. We are privileged to frequently work with communities of citizen scientists, local experts and professional researchers, whose passion and knowledge allows us to expand our understanding and travel beyond our boundaries as artists.
What are the artistic, technological, or scientific research methods that inform your work? To what extent (and how) is audio/sound/music relevant to your work?
Our work is underpinned by practice research, where applied practice is at the core, alongside an ever-expanding set of related areas that change depending on the work we are doing. We are informed by fields including systems theory, complex science, mycology, behavioural ecology, biosemiotics, linguistics, sculpture, and generative music – all areas in which structure and meaning unfold dynamically over time. We both come from a sound and music background, and so that is at the core of our practice. Composing sound is a way of engaging with space and time, and creates a prism through which we can re-articulate the world.
«Our hope is that, by creating a space for deeper interaction with the environment, works like *Living Symphonies* can foster a duty of care towards the natural world in an open and apolitical way.»
To what extent do you see your work, and more extensively, the use of artistic methods, contributing to raising awareness of global crises such as climate change?
Living Symphonies draws the listener’s attention to the changing dynamics of the more-than-human world that surrounds us, so issues such as the climate crisis are, as you might imagine, at the forefront of our thinking. Our hope is that, by creating a space for deeper interaction with the environment, works like Living Symphonies can foster a duty of care towards the natural world in an open and apolitical way. With artistry, and particularly with the medium of spatial sound, we have a unique opportunity to work in a manner that is as unruly and immediate as our experience in the world.
«For our work, technologies may inform and shape, but are never definitive.»
How is technology impacting your work? Do you see technology shaping your creative process or the other way around?
Artists have always used technologies as ways of expressing ideas and creating environments for their audiences, whether it be paintbrushes, violins or stone sculptures. It feels natural to explore novel technologies and how they can inform artistic practice, but we aim to not stray too far from the key ideas that motivate the practice. For our work, technologies may inform and shape, but are never definitive.
How do you see creative AI impacting your practice/work? Is this a topic that interests you or worries you?
Since the earliest days of our studio practice, generative tools have been a key part of our work. Technologies based on machine learning and AI are not fundamentally different to any other digital system, but have a more complex and inscrutable statistical basis. The flexibility of AI can be helpful in certain contexts – particularly when creating systems and instruments that are intended to produce organic outcomes, or when forming responses to sensor data from natural systems.
Whilst we track new research emerging from the field of AI, we see it as a provocation to think carefully about how these tools can aid us in the work we are making, to provide more nuanced insights and greater depth of expression.