Patrick Hartigan’s work Sounds 1–6 comes from a long history of actions as art, experimental compositions, and ready-mades, as in, found and mass-produced objects, used in creating a new work of art.

In this piece, he does a number of actions: with some it is easy to guess what they are, with others, the action is specific. The idea, as you listen through, is to both guess and be surprised, but also to let go of expectations and the prescribed idea of what things are.

The actions are: writing a word using Letraset, sharpening a pencil, writing numbers 1 to 10 using a graphite pencil, playing notes on a ruler, tearing a sheet of A4 paper from top to bottom, slowly, tying shoelaces.

The work is part of the Wesfarmers Collection display in the Micro Galleries with the theme mark-making.