Coutts’ works have been seen in Korea, Taiwan, China, UK, US, Netherlands and New Zealand. He is a founding member of award winning art collective Field Theory. He is the performance programmer for The Unconformity which is a festival based in a mining town on the West Coast of Tasmania.
martyncoutts.com
The Fire Within
The original concept for Martyn Coutts’ Test Sites project was to enable an individual to find a space within the centre of the city to find peace and contemplation. As the conceptual development evolved, the ideas expanded to being a meditation on public space itself.
Why do we come here? What do we do here? Is it a safe place or not?
The project (which in its final stages has been titled The Fire Within) at Test Sites underwent multiple phases of scripting, recording, technical testing and working with the site. Bourke Street Mall was always the intended site for the work and much of the development process was built around that place.
The aim was to create an ambient work in the way that engages with the city. For anyone watching from outside it would be nearly invisible, but for those experiencing it, the city space would be perceived in a completely different way. Wearing noise cancelling headphones, the soundscape and voice simultaneously took participants on a journey far away from their immediate reality, but was also read across what was directly in front of them.
The work subverted the usual trope of the audio tour form and explored issues of sacrifice and belief. It was a very subtle unfolding that was revealed over a 20 minute arc while participants traversed the Bourke Street Mall.