David Chesworth
MESS commissioned artist, Sonorous XI
David Chesworth is a multidisciplinary artist whose output includes music, sound art, video, installation and performance.
His work explores ideas about language and representation within broader cultural contexts. Understanding relationships between performers, audiences and the artwork itself, his works often re-imagine established cultural texts, both historical and within popular culture.
David’s interest is in generating new meanings and fresh relevance from the source material.
How would you describe the sounds you make today?
I’ve always liked exploring the sonorities and ideas that sit on the edge between experimental and popular music. I find myself constantly shifting between minimalism towards offbeat melodic and rhythmic juxtapositions. I also like to punctuate the work with found sounds and live interventions resulting in fragmented, kaleidoscopic narratives.
Where do you find inspiration, what motivates you?
I prefer to respond to provocations: ideas, concepts. I’ve never been one to just turn up and improvise on the spot. When repurposing existing material, I enjoy uncovering unexpected resonances and discovering new meanings. The audience is always front of mind. I’m drawn to creating multiple sonic ‘conversations’ within a piece—these might be ironic, humorous, meditative, provocative, or self-reflective. I like the ambiguity that arises from weaving between these different states, hoping the audience comes along with me.
What’s been one of the most rewarding or satisfying moments of your journey so far?
I guess every new composition I make is a personal reward in itself. I always think that making a new work can be compared to constructing a new building, one that has never existed before in the landscape. And where, just like in a building, the listener can enter and experience different aspects and make their own discoveries within it. I’ve been lucky to make all kinds of sonic buildings over the years.
And the most challenging?
It’s always challenging starting from a concept or a few scattered ideas and sonic sketches, and then trying to shape something that is alive and coherent in some way. For me, each new work is a search for a fresh expressive pathway. That whole process is a challenge but can also lead to great personal discoveries.
Do you have a current ‘go to’ set up at MESS? Any favourite machines or combos that you’re currently digging?
My favourites machines at MESS are three machines that played a big part in my music in my early years. The first is the Mini Korg 700, which is one the most basic synths MESS has. From the 70s, it is a mono synth with a line of switches and a ‘traveller’, which is a filter you can manually sweep. I used this basic instrument and a tape recorder to make my first record, ironically titled ’50 Synthesizer Greats’. Then there is the Serge ‘Paper Face’, from the same period, which is a lot more complex that I used to make self-playing patches, that were released on the record ‘The Unattended Serge’. And finally, the Fairlight CMI, which I got access to when it was first released. I used it to make two early indie albums: ‘No Particular Place’ and ‘Skippy Knows’ by Whadya Want?
In my MESS commission, Will Forces—part of the Sonorous series—I combine the sonic residues of two entwined human pursuits: mining, and the scientific harvesting of environmental data.
I recently joined artist Sonia Leber, Earth Scientists and Indigenous Elders on field trips across the Northern Territory where scientists were using sensing technologies to probe the land for evidence of past climate fluctuations—geological clues that help gauge the impact of human-induced climate change. I conducted my own investigations alongside the scientists.
In both the field and the lab, I used electromagnetic microphones to listen in and capture radio waves emitted by the microchips inside the scientific instruments as they sensed and recorded data. In Will Forces I have translated these radio signals: some directly into audio and others into MIDI data, feeding them into different synthesisers to create an imaginative soundscape drawn from the internal functioning of the scientific instruments.
These are juxtaposed with audio recordings I’ve made at archaeological digs and industrial plants, where raw Earth materials are extracted and processed on an industrial scale. By translating the sounds of scientific sensing technologies, archaeological excavations, and extraction processes into abstract sound, Will Forces creates a kind of surreal soundscape of Earthly pursuits—with all their tensions and paradoxes.
Are there any machines in the MESS collection you’ve had your eye on but haven’t tried yet?
If you could give yourself one piece of advice when you first started what would it be?
Record all the mistakes and wrong turns you make. They are your discoveries.
David Chesworth performs at Sonorous XI
Date: Thursday, July 10, 2025
Time: 7pm
Venue: Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
