Ron Haselden: The Last Castrato

light and sound installation.
convent

"White perspex panels with speakers and responsive LED VU displayes are set just off the wall. Each has an independent set of speaker wires connected to a small personal cassette player and an independent set of 12-volt power wires. The cassete players and power supplies were each located in a darkened room just within earshot of one another. Each has an independent, continuous soundtrack of a recording of the Last Castrato (fragmented from the opera). The sound levels are low and intimate."

Ron Haselden, 1994


Ron Haselden (born 1944) is a British artist who splits his time between London and the French coastal town of Plouër-sur-Rance in Brittany, France. He works with light, sound, film and video, often as part of architectural projects. Ron was born in Kent and attended the Gravesend School of Art. After teaching for a number of years at Reading Unoversity he moved to France. In 1993, he created a twenty-foot high new moon illuminating the front of the South London Gallery. Blue Passage (1999), was made for the passageway between the South Bank and the British Film Institute IMAX cinema in London and consists of 8000 blue LEDs sunk into the walls of the underpass. In 1994, his parametrically controlled light sculpture at Peckham Arch, London was completed. It lights up the arch canopy from four tree-like light posts. Haselden was awarded an Andrew Grant scholarship to study sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art (1961-1966). He taught sculpture in the Department of Fine Art, Reading University and founded the mixed media area in the early seventies.
Haselden was awarded the Sargant Fellowship at the British School at Rome, Italy, and during the course of his productions he has received awards and grants from numerous funding bodies as well as being represented in many private and public collections, including The Arts Council of Great Britain, The Lorne Award, The Hamlyn Foundation, The Elephant Trust, The Esmée Fairbaim Foundation, The London Arts Board, The Henry Moore Foundation, The British Council, The RSA Art for Architecture Award Scheme, Alliance Française, Conseil Général Côtes d’Armor and le Fonds Régional d’Arts Contemporain (FRAC) de Brétagne, or the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Much of the sculpture is concerned with light as constructions, photographic works and video. The three-dimensional work ranges from a minute scale to large performance productions involving up to 400 participants which take place in major cities across Europe. Some sculptures are permanently installed in public spaces throughout the UK, whilst other works are conceived and installed in galleries or, for limited periods of time, in rural landscape locations. His work is represented by LUX online.
Ron Haselden participated in the Transparent Messenger and Growthrings symposium in Plasy, and also exhibited in Prague at the Synagogue Na Palmovce in 1996 and, together with Sharon Kivland, also in gallery Nenička.