Grant Mooney's 'sphere music' at Chisenhale Gallery explores spectral listening through turbine blades and cuttlebone

Grant Mooney's exhibition 'sphere music' at Chisenhale Gallery in London presents an investigation into Pauline Oliveros's concept of deep listening through industrial and organic materials. Three sets of three-meter metal turbine blades, polished yet bearing traces of use, rest on the gallery floor alongside their drive motors. A digital screen mounted parallel to the ceiling displays frequency lines in reds and yellows, responding to live vibrations from a harp positioned on the roof in collaboration with Winona Sloane Odette. The exhibition's smallest work, Ƒe.(i), features a cuttlebone pinned through its center into a silver-electroplated cast-iron block, creating material juxtapositions that suggest cartographic gradients. Mooney's previous works include the Cation series (2024) of electroplated steel and Partials (2021) featuring brass instrument fragments. The artist draws influence from Douglas Kahn's concept of 'panaurality,' which proposes that planetary rotation could produce a pervasive resonance. The show runs through December 7, 2025, emphasizing displacement as its dominant register, with sonic events occurring beyond immediate perception. Wind from removed gallery windows animates the space, while the harp's vibrations remain inaudible to visitors, creating an experience focused on absence and spectral possibilities.