Tag: audio

review of Sonic Faction now online

My review of Sonic Faction: Audio Essay as Medium and Method is now live at Leonardo Reviews. The review will be included in print in Leonardo 58.2 (due for publication in February 2025).

Sonic Faction was a pair of events, one held at Iklectik in London (July 2022) and one at KARST in Plymouth (February 2023), where three works were presented for collective listening, along with a public discussion and an installation of related material. The three pieces were: Mark Fisher and Justin Barton’s On Vanishing Land (2006), Steve Goodman’s Astro-Darien (2021) and Robin Mackay’s By the North Sea (2022). This book takes on several tasks, operating as a catalogue for or record of the events, offering an expanded commentary on the works presented and giving significant detail on the conception, making and presentation of these. The book also functions as a primer or a means toward defining or describing a genre – the audio essay – situating it in historic, artistic, critical, theoretical contexts. In pursuit of this, the book brings together a selection of essays that describe or demonstrate the audio essay as a medium and as an approach to making art. Bringing together writing by artists, theorists, publishers, broadcasters the mix of perspectives and modes of involvement with the audio essay results in an array of textual riches, supplemented by a comprehensive playlist on YouTube.

revised dictionary performance at The House, Feb 15 2022

On Tuesday 15th February 2022, I premiéred a new performance work, ‘revised dictionary supplement’ at University of Plymouth theatre venue, The House.

With thanks to Melaine Le Bars for sound and lighting support. And thanks to everyone who made it on a wet and windy Plymouth night.

Photography by Matthew Pontin (Fotonow CIC)

‘scavenged home’ with Aled Simons

Aled Simons and Mark Leahy, ‘Scavenged Home’, (2021), digital animation with audio, 2’ 30”

Sticking bits of things together for now: we began with a conversation, talked about collecting, stickers, taxonomy, and about making work, and the things that get in the way of making work – we also talked about Artex covered ceilings and finding a “studio” or somewhere to make stuff; subsequent exchanges included some mail-art collages sent from Dublin to Swansea, and discussion of grottoes, skins, Stonehenge, Welshness (sort of) and Irishness (a bit) and somewhere in there a sense of the legacy of colonialism … these things have fed into a short animation that curls together hermit crabs, National Trust properties, appropriation and occupation, language, accidental layering and a relationship of belonging and memory;

Over recent months I have been part of the Exchange project, which has involved 60 artists from 6 artist-led groups across England. 10 members of CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Plymouth) were each paired with a partner from another organisation, and I have been working with Aled Simons of g39 in Cardiff. The project comes to a close on 30th July with The Summit – a sharing of some outcomes and a conversation about the sharing / collaboration / exchange process.

short audio piece for Spring

I made a short word and sound piece for Soundart Radio‘s annual First Spark Festival, happening this year from Sunday 31st January to Tuesday February 2nd. This piece, ‘thaw biddy and melt’ picks up on a text I wrote last year that drew on material in the Duchas.ie Schools Collection around the Irish traditions associated with St. Brigid’s Day (Feb 1st). I added some sound layers using treated and distorted water and ice recordings. You can hear it on Soundcloud, or listen out for the broadcast on Sunday 31st.