Parallel to the intensified blood hunt for file sharers, the music industry is screaming for
strengthened copyright laws, under the pretext that it is to protect the creators (musicians, artists,
writers). In actual case, it is obviously to protect their own interests that the major record labels try
to throw a spanner into the works for both development and creativity. With the current laws it
would be impossible for genres like jazz and rock music to emerge since what has always been an
integral part of musical development, namely references, borrowings and paraphrases, no longer is
possible without financial backing from the major players of the music industry. Instead of
investing money in trying to keep up with the technical development the money is spent on
lobbying to convince politicians and legislators that it is necessary to litigate against both file
sharing and any creator who gets the idea to borrow to create something new. Few others have been
protected more fiercely in this way than an old pop band from Liverpool, who themselves were
borrowing a lot from old blues tunes. We are of course speaking of The Beatles, and said band is
also one of the reasons why we now see the copyright for recordings being prolonged.
In the installation The Complete Beatles the artist Conny Blom is symbolically challenging the
music industry as his 8 channel sound installation consists in its entirety of music recorded by the
British band. As a matter of fact, every second of the officially released studio recordings by The
Beatles is included in the piece, but none of the songs can be recognised. Each individual track is
looped and played simultaneously, so that at any given moment of the continuous sound one can
hear all of The Beatles’ studio recordings. The sound shifts as one walks through the room and
comes closer to individual speakers. The overtones shimmer and vibrate. The production on the
earlier and later albums differs and this is noticeable even though not a single note of the original
music can be identified. This is not about sampling – The Beatles production is presented in its
entirety – but is it The Beatles that we are hearing?
Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanič
Technician: Valter Udovičić
The exhibition was realized with the support of Iaspis, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Programme for Visual Artists.
The programme of Aksioma Institute is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
Conny Blom is an artist currently based in Sweden. With a background as an art historian and
Master degree in Fine Arts, Blom deals with the defining issues of our modern society, our living
conditions and the rights of the individual versus the society and the economical forces. Trying to
balance between the poetic and the subversive, Blom uses material from pop culture as well as
iconic pieces of contemporary art to comment, question and subvert established hierarchies. By
focusing on the otherwise overlooked, the in-between, and the unseen, reediting it into new
aesthetic experiences, Blom aims to provide new perspectives and bring into light previously
untold stories.