grey is the colour of hope is the fourth audio work compiled byAlan Dunn, artist and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art atLeeds Metropolitan University.

Taking its cue from the manners in which the colour grey has beenused in literature, art and design from the Old Testament to thepresent day, the CD brings together new audio works fromstudents and staff in the School of Contemporary Art andGraphic Design alongside artists' compositions and archivalmaterial. The School comprises Contemporary Art Practice, FineArt and Graphic Design.

Permission has been secured and negotiated on each excerptand the CD is produced in a limited edition of 1,000 and givenaway freely to students and interested parties. Support for theproject has come from the Arts Council of England and Metropolitan University and design of the CD packaging is byJohn Barton and Sean Thomas, two Second Year Graphic Designstudents.

Composed to echo JMW Turner's 1797 Moonlight, a Study atMillbank ­ a grey landscape shot with one brilliant spash of joy ­the CD deploys a Leadbelly spoken word introduction from and a newly composed piece from Bill Drummond (Grey and meto bookend a lengthy grey sound collage (with one splash ofcolour) blending student works and content from Henry Miller,Gerhard Richter, Lydia Lunch, Rodney Marsh and WilliamShakespeare.

Dunn's accompanying essay traces a personal interest in thecolour, referencing Irina Ratushinskaya's prison journal the colour of hope, John Major and late 1800's photographs ofGlasgow. To order a free copy of the CD please email Alan Dunnat a.dunn@leedsmet.ac.uk

AD&THEFILMTAXI Shave to grey The sound of shaving (to) visage, devenir a gris, 2010.

Andrew Wilson­Lambeth A wilder gray Andrew, a lecturer in Graphic Design at LMU, created A wilder gray by breathing along toGray, a piece by Alec Wilder from the 1956 Colombia LP Frank Sinatra Conducts TonePoems of Colour, which is the same age as his own lungs (54 yrs); the first quarterincorporates g­sounds, the next quarter r­sounds, then a­sounds and finally y­ish noises,taking him a complete minute to say gray (grey).

Andrew Tunstall Covered in dust Andrew, a Second Year student in Contemporary Art Practices, created this live instrumentversion of a chopped up sample soundpiece inspired by Neil Young's Cowgirl in the Sand.

Bill Drummond Grey and me Recorded specifically for the CD in a hotel in Swansea, December 2009. See Penkiln Burn.

Boo Radleys Wake up Boo! The chorus from Wake Up Boo!, performed by The Boo Radleys (p), written by Martin Carr,1995 Creation Records Limited is licensed courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited.

Chris Wheeler Grey Mist Chris, a Third Year student in Fine Art, comments about his piece: “the Latin word for Grey isGriseus. Canus which means light grey, 'Canus' was used (also meant an old man ­ one withgray hair). 'Caesius' meant blue­gray, and was used for eyes only. With this in mind I havecreated my artist impression of what this “grey” is to me."

DX5 Fade to grey Excerpts from a cover version of the Visage song, written by Billy Currie, Christopher Payneand Midge Ure and recorded by Visage, Polydor Records 1980.

Gerhard Richter Excerpt from letter to Edy de Wilde, 1975 Incuded by kind permission of Atelier Richter, and read for the CD by Peter Gorschlüter, Headof Exhibitions and Display at Tate Liverpool.

The Grey Panthers Rally cry The Grey Panthers were founded by Maggie Kuhn to further pensioners' rights and to providea forum for elderly citizens across the globe. In this clip, Judy Lear is the Panther ‘roaringagainst the war’ in Brooklyn on 13 September 2007.

Grey Gordon Orchestra Artists Life From 1939

Harold Offeh Grey gardensHarold, artist and lecturer in Contemporary Art Practices, reads an excerpt from Grey gardens,the 1975 documentary film on the reclusive socialite Edith Beales, first cousin of JacquelineKennedy Onassis.

Henry Miller Quiet days in Clichy Excerpts from the opening page are included courtesy of the Henry Miller Estate and AgenceHoffman. Kindly read for the CD by the artist Les Joynes, sitting in the Shabu Shabu Eastrestaurant in New York, January 2010. Miller wrote Clichy, published by Olympia Press in1956, in New York and opens with a celebration of the French grey ­ gris ­ in its infinite worldof thought and freedom.

Hilary Mullaney Green Gates Dublin­based composer Hilary Mullaney studied at the Centre de création musicale IannisXenakis in Paris and completed Scipio and completed the Mamori Sound Project residencyin Brazil with Francisco Lopez in 2008. Green gates uses recordings of the sound producedwhen wind blows through the gates of her home during grey, stormy conditions.

Huw Andrews Biodegrade, Grace and UFA Huw, a Third Year Fine Art student, created three pieces for the CD. He notes: “To find grey,the inescapable shade, proved to be harder that expected. Eventually I found its sound on thestreet and in our voices. Removing syllables and recording steps formed a measuredbackbeat to grey. Through systematic marches, such repetition creates its pace, the pace ofgrey.”

Irina Ratushinskaya Grey is the colour of hope The epilogue from Irina Ratushinskaya's Grey is the colour of hope (1988) is includedcourtesy of the poet herself and Andrew Nurnberg Associates. This recording is copyright ofIsis Publishing 1990. On her 29th birthday in 1983, Ratushinskaya was imprisoned for sevenyears hard labour in a Siberian labour camp for "expressing anti­Soviet propaganda". Inatrocious circumstances, she continued to write and smuggle out texts recounting her struggleto see hope in everything, including her grey Zek uniform.

Jeff Young Colourblind Jeff Young’s work includes over twenty plays, radio essays and drama documentaries forResonance FM and BBC Radio 3 and 4. He has collaborated with Pete Townshend onLifehouse and Quadrophenia, with Pete Wylie on Pins and needles and his Carandiru,recorded in a Sao Paulo prison, was nominated for a Sony.

Jim Mangnall The new black

Jim Mangnall was born in Liverpool in 1930 and has had poetry and short stories published inthe UK and the Netherlands with Ambit, Minerva Press, Heinemann and the BBC. His novelThe Map Maker was published by Driftwood/Ambit in 2001.

Joe Whitney Fan and Silence Joe, a Second Year Contemporary Art Practices student, created two works for the CD.

John Whitehead Grey John is a Third Year Contemporary Art Practices student.

Lauren Wiles­Shortall Movement and Taping Lauren, a Second Year Contemporary Art Practices student, created two works for the CD.

Leadbelly Grey goose The spoken word introduction to this 1947 recording by Leadbelly is from the recordingentitled Leadbelly Sings for Children, SF45047, provided courtesy of Smithsonian FolkswayRecordings, © 1999. Used by permission.

Les Connelly 10 percent Les is a Second Year Contemporary Art Practices student and his 10 percent is a piecetransformed significantly from its original orchestration of distorted samples of every day grey­coloured objects. From the first industrial composition, speeds and lengths were adjusted tocreate this haunting piece.

Liz Stirling Grey ink Liz lectures in Graphis Design and co­runs the MA Programme for the School with PeterLewis. Grey ink

Lydia Lunch & Teenage Jesus Burning Rubber (excerpt) The line 'the cement glows grey' is from Burning Rubber, words and music by Lydia Lunch,performed by Teenage Jesus, published by Widowspeak (ASCAP/HFA), © LydiaLunch/Widowspeak.

Mark Hannesson Greymatter Mark Hannesson is a Winnipeg­born composer now living in Edmonton Canada, a foundingmember of the experimental Music Collective, and is presently teaching composition andmusic technology at the University of Alberta.

Mark Whitford For all your sins and Untitled (grey) Mark Whitford is a Third Year Contemporary Art Practices student and his For all your sins ishis audio perception of what grey might sound like, higher pitch tones representing white,

lower tones black. Untitled (grey) developed from a childhood memory of standing on a ferrydisappearing into the mist.

Max Richter The Road Is A Grey Tape Max Richter’s The road is a grey tape is from the CD 24 postcards in full colour, a collection ofcompositions for alternative ringtones, exploring the anticipation one feels when a mobilerings.

Medea Connection Grey In the Grey Morning Medea Connection hail from Massachusetts.

Midge Ure On writing Fade to grey Midge Ure outlines the story of Ultravox, Thin Lizzy, Gary Numan and Billy Currie that resultsin the writing of Fade to grey.

Port + Starboard Embraced by Murky Sobs Port + Starboard’s Embraced by Murky Sobs is also based on personal accounts of beingcaught in dense fog at sea, an unsettling experience, in many cases more dangerous thansevere storm conditions and large waves. For anyone who has spent time at sea, therelevance of the colour grey will be self­evident. Talk to experienced seamen and they will nodoubt have encountered the disorientation and feelings of helplessness one experienceswhen caught in a 'grey­out'.

REKS Grey Hairs REKS appears courtesy of Traffic Entertainment and Grey hairs is from 2008.

Rian Treanor Improbability will decide our future Rian is a Third Year Fine Art student and his Improbability will decide our future wasproduced as part of the the 2009 Chris Watson audio project in The Leeds School ofContemporary Art and Graphic Design.

Rodney Marsh English football is a grey game Becoming disillusioned with the English game in the 1970s, Rodney signed for the TampaBay Rowdies and signed off with the line English football is a grey game played on grey daysby grey people now recorded specifically for the CD in Miami.

Rory Macbeth Untitled Sustained Note no.3 Artist and lecturer in Fine Art and Contemporary Art Practices, Rory's Untitled Sustained Noteno.3 is the Yorkshire Imperial Brass Band all playing a randomly chosen note for as long athey can.

The Old Testament Bring down thy grey hairs with sorrow to the grave From Genesis 42:38, variably written bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol, the griefwould drive this gray­haired old man to his grave or bring down my gray hairs with sorrow tohell.

Wil Bolton Static Loop Wil Bolton is an artist working predominantly with sound, combining electronic tones withdigitally processed acoustic sounds including field recordings and musical instruments. Healso collaborates with Shay Nassi as Shail.

William Shakespeare The grey­eyed morn smiles on the frowning night From Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, scene 3)

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This item is intended solely for educational use, is not for sale or re­sale or any furtherdistribution. This CD has been compiled by Alan Dunn, Associate Senior Lecturer inContemporary Art, Leeds Metropolitan University and has been supported by the Arts Councilof England and Leeds Metropolitan University. It brings together new audio works by staff andstudents from the School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design alongside existing artists’pieces and archival material. Every effort has been made to ensure proper and legal use of allaudio and any queries should be addressed to: a.dunn@leedsmet.ac.uk.

Edition of 1,000 distributed free of charge, cantaudio031, Leeds/Liverpool, March 2010. ThisCD is covered by an MCPS Limited Manufacture Licence.

Design by John Barton and Sean Thomas, Second Year Graphic Design students. Coverimages taken from a San Francisco apartment window on consecutive days, Chris Bloor,2009. Manufacture by Mediaheaven, Leeds. Produced by Paul Draper and Adam Monaghan,Dead Frog Studio, Bickerstaffe

This CD has been made possible with the invaluable support, encouragement and co­operation of many people, including Thomas Good (Editor, Next Left Notes), Alex Wright(Fat Cat Records), David McCleery (Manners McDade Artist Management), PhillippaWatson (Midge Ure Office), Jose Maria Bara (DX5), Daniel Brockman and Tanya Paglia(Medea Connection), Georges Hoffman and Ursula Bender (Agence Hoffman), DavidMoynihan (Disruptive Publishing), Eric Price and Amy Hundley (Grove Atlantic), MartinCarr (Boo Radleys), Elizabeth Peers (Sony Music), Cathy Carapella (SmithsonianFolkways), Christine Couldwell (Design and Artists Copyright Society), Emily Wrath (TateEnterprises Ltd), Konstanze Ell (Atelier Richter), Tom Garretson (Lydia Lunch agreement),Joanna Olszowska (Director, EMG Sports & Entertainment), Irina Roberts (AndrewNurnberg Associates), Becky Curtis (Isis Publishing Ltd), Alice Morgan, James Chinneck,Marion Harrison, Aidan Winterburn and Chris Bloor (Leeds Metropolitan University),Sarah Fisher (Arts Council of England), Paul Lines (Mediaheaven), Derek Horton, TonyDash, Brigitte Jurack, Heidi & Zak.

Grey chronology

Old Testament Shall you bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave (Genesis 42:38)c1550 All cats are grey in the dark, proverb

1591­95 The grey­eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, chequering the eastern cloudswith streaks of light, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet: Act 2, Scene 3

1640 First mention of Rikyu grey (Rikyu nezumi) in the Annuals of Choando, Kubo GondaifuToshinari’s book of tea in which he encouraged Japanese people to reject the ornate infavour of rusticity.

c1840 Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs, Charles Dickens

1797 Moonlight, Study at Millbank, J.M.W. Turner

1822 The earth was grey with phantoms, P.B. Shelley

1911 Little grey home in the West, Hermann Frederic Löhr and D. Eardley­Wilmot

1926 Grey Gull Records open recording studio in New York City equipped with the newelectric microphones

1937 The Grey Children – a study in humbug and misery, James Hanley

1944 The old grey hare, featuring Bugs Bunny

1949 What struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman’s greyish face, 1984,George Orwell

1959 What a poem this is … describing every grey mysterious detail, the grey film that caughtthe actual pink juice of human kind, Jack Kerouac

1965 1965 / 1 – 8, Roman Opalka’s daily painting of consecutive numbers on blank canvasbegins, switching to a grey background in 1968. Also, in 1965 the Mamas and The Papaswrite California Dreaming’s All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey and a year later, AlanCharlton commences his grey monochrome canvases.

1971 The Old Grey Whistle test starts on BBC as Caravan release In the land of pink andgrey.

1981 Peter Saville’s grey sleeve design for Joy Division’s Still

1982 You’ve got grey eyes, from Temptation, New Order

1992 They say grey is boring. They say grey is dull. They say grey means John Major. Butthey’re wrong! Grey can be good! Grey can even be sexy, Esquire Magazine

2003 Into the grey, exhibition of seventeen artists working with grey, Cover Up project space,London

2004 The Grey Album, Dangermouse’s illegal mesh of The White Album (including

Revolution 9) and The Black Album, followed by a mass file sharing day known as GreyTuesday

2009 I am black or white, I'll never be grey in my life, Diego Maradona

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The morning after a revolution by Alan Dunn, February 2010

I wake up and stretch my weary back, knocking over the statue of black CDs by the side of the bed. , said Leninabout Mozart. The sound of dripping water. I open the curtains to a drizzly grey fog enveloping Wallasey,shadows having slithered off to warmer climes.

Unlike Robert Rauschenberg who limited perception to the shadow of the viewer moving in front of the whitecanvas, Gerhard Richter removed even the shadow itself. He wrote to Edy de Wilde in 1975 grey is the epitomeof non­statement, it does not trigger off feelings or associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible … andlike no other colour it is suitable for illustrating ‘nothing’. It is the only possible equivalent for indifference, for therefusal to make a statement, for lack of opinion, for lack of form.

From the oval mirror, words from the Old Testament stare back at me: bring down thy grey hairs with sorrow tothe grave. I pull on my faded Arts Council of England t­shirt and head out to the park. Cool colours like grey cancause you to underestimate time. The playlist: Richard and Mimi Farina Celebrations for a grey day, BadReligion Grey race, Suzanne Vega Songs in red and grey, Roxy Music Grey lagoons, The Who Blue, redand grey

I live three minutes from Central Park in Wallasey, a simple park opened in 1891 and once the grounds ofLiscard Hall. The building was more recently used as an Art College with alumni including OMD’s AndyMcCluskey, but on the 7th July 2008 it was razed to the ground. I went out at night to photograph the remainingrubble and used the dark image on the cover of the Revolution CD. Architecture and morality. The sky hangsheavy. Running around the cricket pitch and Council changing rooms, the greys around me turn out to be dullyellow­greens, dull greens or dull blue­violets. Grey wheelie bins for paper. Grey literature. Grey is the colourof hope. During her political imprisonment in Siberia, poet Irina Ratushinskaya fought to transform hersurrounds into hope; the survival of a tiny insect, the joy of splicing up a food morsel between ten women, thegrey of their Zek uniforms. I force myself to name the greys I see: oyster, Michael Stipe’s headache grey,Glasgow grey, Payne’s Grey, ash and cloud. Kisho Kurokawa reminds us that “in contrast to grey in the West,

which is a combination of white and black, Rikyu grey is a combination of four opposing colours: red, blue,yellow and white.”

(Voice over tanoy system): GREY INTERNATIONAL, a leading global advertising agency group, is looking for agraduate to handle day­to­day management of its Intranet site.

Approaching the space where Liscard Hall once stood, the Mersey Tunnel vents come into view in the distance.Sounds from the suburbs. Boston Symphony Orchestra describes their side drum as neutral grey. Perhaps thatis colour association rather than a verifiable relationship. It’s always Greyhound Buses, but the colour gray. Ithink of Leeds’ Frankie Gray. In the early­90s I worked in Frankie’s birthplace, bleak rainy Castlemilk on theSouth Side of Glasgow, with the Pensioners’ Action Group. For months I encouraged them to draw FrankSinatra, using white chalk on black paper, slowly zooming in on his eyes. They made a show of it called WhenI’m old and grey in the local shopping centre. Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Colour on CapitolRecords from 1956 includes Alec Wilder’s piece Gray, now reworked for this CD by Andrew Wilson­Lambeth.

I was shocked the first time I saw the Ndebele wall paintings of Africa. Many of them were grey andmonochrome. They belonged more to the East End of Glasgow, my aunts and uncles’ grey streets of meatmarkets, bookies, windowless pubs and scrap yards. This dull damp East End was documented in the late1800’s by a photographer calling himself The Shadow. The earth was grey with phantoms P.B. Shelley wrote. Igrew up in that East End with a father obsessed by the 18% grey card, the mathematical middle point betweenblack and white. Oscar Marzaroli’s city of Shades of grey. We had very few shadows. Donald Judd regardedgrey as a colour. At this stage we consider the problematic question, whether all human forms and hues are notequally beautiful, and whether custom and self­deceit are not the causes of preference? I reach the beginningagain, breathing heavily, my halfway point. Listening to Kelvin K’s Revolution beats. Colour temperature ismeasured in Kelvins and to the human eye a white wall is 2800k. In 1979 I went to a huge grey concreteSecondary School soundtracked by The Specials singing I’m the man in grey, just the man at C&A, The Beatpainting your life with a permanent grey and Madness’ Grey day. In 1984 we read Orwell describing Winston’sfear of the grey faces. I write prosaically. Around the football pitch. Ferguson blamed defeat on United’s greystrip. “English football is a grey game played on grey days by grey people” said Rodney Marsh as he steppedonto the plane for Florida. Grey satellite dishes. Grey squirrels.

At art school in the mid­80s I became interested in grey, in Richter’s grey, Morrissey’s silent and grey, HüskerDü’s all I see is grey; John Major became Prime Minister whilst I was doing my MA and in 1993 I producedEurope’s biggest mural at the time, turning a vast car park’s grey surface green. The public, and The Sun, slatedit. I should have kept it grey. Devenir a gris.

At 20 I started going grey up top. Is it just a lack of melanin? Back in Boston, the University Medical ResearchCentre discovered that individuals who start to grey while still young are six times more likely to suffer adegenerative thinning of the bones. “Let the grey ones beware! The general public no longer loves its grey onesso dearly” warned D.H. Lawrence. Smokers are four times more likely to begin greying prematurely. Will thewoman in my life like my grey hair? I contacted the Cologne branch of The Grey Panthers. Prevent grey hairswith our special stress­free mortgage for first time buyers. The pensioners I jog past don’t look like roaring. Thereare over one thousand pensioners in UK jails. My legs ache, each stain on the grey path a little grey country. Ameeting of The Grey Council is adjourning. Grey cloaks stand around a circular table. I proposed hiring a Miroexhibition to contrast my Payne’s Grey suite of Kilmarnock paintings. I moved to the grey town of Derby and readJames Hanley’s Grey Children – a study in humbug and misery. I moved to Liverpool. When skies are greyasked Steve McManaman whether his favourite colour was red or blue. “Neither” he diplomatically replied, “it’sgrey.” Grey is a colour with a gentle demeanor, perfect for autumn, winter and spring, a colour for the businessworld, serious and respected.

It used to be that newly pressed records were first listened to by grey suited doormen and if they could whistle itafter one listening, the music had passed the old grey whistle test. The 2005 compilation Music for Joggingproudly boasted on its sleeve Bonus feature: bpm for each track included. Six years ago American artistMargaret Muller was brutally murdered as she jogged through Victoria Park in London. Movement in the bushes.Blow up. In What sound does a colour make? Kathleen Forde recounted philosopher John Locke’s tale of astudious blind man bragging that he understood what the colour scarlet signified … the sound of a trumpet.Twice around Central Park every day trying to work this grey project out. An old L’Oreal advert lay in a puddle:This is today’s grey, so radiant, it’s a revolution! Walking through New York’s Central Park one grey icy foggymorning, I hear only Rory Macbeth’s Untitled Sustained Note no.3. The opposite of grey could only be grey. I’mdoing the running for the kids. I’m running to make the grey bearable, to make it hopeful, like having someonefilm me having my last ever cigarette for Self portrait with last cigarette.

I approach the final stretch, the skies darkening, the cricket pavilion morphing into a pier, the sight screens intosails. I’m running through Tate Britain past Turner’s Moonlight: a study at Millbank. A foggy greying skyline issalvaged only by a brilliant yellow moon. C’mon kids. Have we ever let you down? The moonlight in the grey.Wake up. It’s a beautiful morning.

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