Rik Rue (born Richard Banachowicz)[1] is an Australian experimental musician,[2] and sound artist, known for his audio collages[3] in recordings and live performance.
Biography
Born in Sydney in 1950 [4] to Polish refugee parents, Rue began constructing sound collages on tape from the age of 15,[4] later encouraged by Australian painter and collage artist Carl Plate.[4] He studied part-time at the Slade School, Camden Art Centre and Royal College of Art in London.[4]
He first performed on saxophone with a number of prominent Sydney improvisers including Serge Ermoll, Jon Rose and Louis Burdett[5][4] before switching to live mixing of sampled and pre-recorded sound on audio cassette recorders including the TASCAM Portastudio, describing the relationship between the two instruments, 'The tape is improvised in a sense, by equalisation, adding timbres, adding pitch controls, the various combinations of mixing. All those areas give you a sort of phrasing not unlike saxophonists altering their embouchure, and I approach the tapes in this manner.'[6]
In 1995 his recordings were included in the exhibition Sound In Space: Adventures In Australian Sound Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney.[18] The major sound work Things Change, Things Remain The Same commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, was exhibited as part of the major contemporary art exhibition Australian Perspecta 1997: Between Art and Nature. It has been described as an 'outback road-trip of the mind'.[19] His video and sound work Fire and Water was shown at SNO Gallery Sydney in 2014.[20]
A number of Rue's early cassette recordings were re-released by Shame File Music from 2014.[21] In 2018 the exhibition In-Formalism at the Casula Powerhouse, included a survey of his tape works.[22]
Rue suffers from multiple sclerosis and is now no longer active in performing or recording.[1]
Discography
Louis Burdett, Jon Rose, Rik Rue, Towards a Relative Music, LP (Fringe Benefit Records, 1979)
Dave Ellis, Serge Ermoll, Peter Kelly, Jon Rose, Rik Rue, Improvisations, LP (Fringe Benefit Records, 1979)
Rik Rue, A Raise of an Eyebrow, cassette (Pedestrian Tapes, 1983)
Fifi L' Amour & Rik Rue, Rue L'Amour, cassette (Pedestrian Tapes, 1984)
Jim Denley, Ikue Mori, Rik Rue, Amanda Stewart, David Watson, Bit-Part Actor, CD (Braille Records, 1996)
Tony Buck & Rik Rue, Come Let's Build Ourselves A City, mini CD (Algen, 1996)
Rik Rue, Sample/Shuffle/Interplay, CD (Extreme Records, 1999)
Rik Rue, Environmentally Yours, Limited Edition CDR, signed by the artist (no label, 2004)
Rik Rue, Recent and Not So Recent Collage Works, CD (no label, 2004)
Radiophonic Works
Machine for Making Sense (Rik Rue, Amanda Stewart, Jim Denley, Chris Mann, Stevie Wishart), Silence is therefore the only possible means of communication - Karl Marx 1843, (Kunstradio 1995)[23]
Machine for Making Sense (Rik Rue, Amanda Stewart, Jim Denley, Stevie Wishart), The Twentieth Century Never Happened, (Kunstradio 2001)
Frog Peak Collaboration Project, double CD (Frog Peak, 1997)
Atherton, Franklin, Hewitt, Knowles, Payne, Rue, Social Interiors, Westerkamp, space, time & the roaring silence, CD (School of Contemporary Arts, UWS, 1999)
Lloyd Barrett, Lucas Darklord, Buttress O'Kneel, Shannon O'Neill, Rik Rue, Radio Metamix, download (Alias Frequencies, 2009)
with Social Interiors
Social Interiors (Shane Fahey & Rik Rue), Social Interiors, cassette (Pedestrian Tapes, 1985)
Social Interiors (Shane Fahey & Rik Rue ), Intrusions into the Environment, cassette (Pedestrian Tapes, 1987)
Social Interiors (Shane Fahey, Julian Knowles & Rik Rue), The World Behind You, CD (Extreme Records, 1995)
Social Interiors (Shane Fahey, Julian Knowles & Rik Rue), Traces of Mercury, CD (Extreme Records, 1995)
Social Interiors (Shane Fahey, Julian Knowles & Rik Rue) Spatial Circumference, CD (Endgame, 2006)
^Shannon O’Neill, "Copyright Doesn’t Mean Shit to Me: sampling and appropriation in Australian Experimental Music and Sound Art", in Gail Priest (ed), 'Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia', UNSW Press, Sydney 2009, ISBN978-1-921410-07-9
^Shannon O’Neill, "Copyright Doesn’t Mean Shit to Me: sampling and appropriation in Australian Experimental Music and Sound Art", in Gail Priest (ed), 'Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia', UNSW Press, Sydney 2009
^D. Bechtloff (ed.) 1989, Kunstforum International 103, Im Netz der Systeme, 'Jim Denley/Rik Rue: Passives/Aktives Weshelspiel: Zwei Burschen aus dem Busch'