‘threaded insert’ for Projectivisms, Cardiff on 18 May 2018

On Friday May 18th I will present ‘threaded insert’ at the symposium, Projectivisms: way-making the contemporary projective. Organised by Wanda O’Connor, the programme includes performances, papers, workshops and readings.

The structural inheritance of the projective has given way to new experiments of shape, juxtaposition and as yet unnamed forces. What now eclipses or brings forward this important formal work?

Events take place at Cardiff University’s Glamorgan Building and are open to the public.

working on ‘breath pieces’ with Rosanna Irvine

Over the past few weeks I have been meeting with Rosanna Irvine to develop an element for the performance project Breath Pieces. This aspect of the project will premiere at Tramway in Glasgow on Saturday 23rd June.

Breath Pieces draws on Eastern breath practices – including martial arts and yoga – to investigate the material and energetic qualities of breath. Conceived as an expanded choreographic project, it operates across art forms in the creation of multiple pieces. In each piece the actuality of the breathing breath is the driving force for the visceral emerging of kinetic, sonic and visual imagery. The event at Tramway brings together many of the pieces in an immersive performance experience. Each piece is distinct though at times overlapping or interacting with other pieces. Audience is mobile. Breath is everywhere.

The work is part of an ongoing research project Breath Pieces by Rosanna Irvine.

More information and booking via the Tramway website

 

poster presentation at Patras University

I am presenting a poster at the 2nd  Congress Performing Arts in Education: collectivity, thought and experience on the 23rd and  24th March 2018, at the University of Patras, Greece.

The event is organised by University of Patras in collaboration with Archeological Museum of Patras & DERIDAncetheatre Ensemble.

The congress will include full papers and posters, lecture presentations, performance lectures, workshops, and live performances. Presenters from different fields including art and education theory and practice will come together to present their works and research on the subject of ‘Performing arts in education’.

My poster ‘Contextualising ‘his voice’: Queering Utterance in a Digital Material Interface’ is part of the session titled: Performance Writing (convened by Christos Polymenakos).

 

‘threaded insert’ for Tears in Rain at PAW 2017

‘threaded insert’ on Sun 24th September at Plymouth Athenaeum

I will perform a new work, ‘threaded insert’ as part of a group project Tears in Rain for Plymouth Art Weekender 2017 at Plymouth Athenaeum, on Sunday 24th September. Tears in Rain is a day-long event bringing together a range of practices by artists whose work uses live or performance elements, alongside participation, moving image and installation. The programme mixes durational and installed work with timed events and actions, and the Athenaeum Auditorium shapes and influences the work. The project includes new works and works adapted to suit this particular context with actions happening throughout the space, projections, a lecture, one-to-one interaction and improvised responses to the site. The artists in Tears in Rain are: Mo Bottomley / Katrina Brown / Mark Leahy / Steven Paige / Marcy Saude / Minou Tsambika

In ‘threaded insert’ I receive via headphones a series of instructions, for orientation, movement, speech, and other actions including spelling words, randomly selected from a database of short audio files. The content derives from guides and instructions for ‘proper’ speech, rules for social and public behaviour, and control or modification of the body. I will perform the work three times over the course of the event, starting from a different point in the building each time, mapping a different course and telling a different tale in response to the received instructions. The score is applicable to any site or any building, but is also specific in the spoken responses and movements it generates; ‘threaded insert’ could be anywhere, but when I am performing in the Athenaeum, the work will also bring attention to qualities and features of that particular space.

 

‘his voice’ at dataAche, DRHA 2017, Plymouth

On Tuesday September 12th I will present ‘his voice’ at dataAche, DRHA2017 at Plymouth University. dataAche is the 21st international conference on Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA). Happening over four days, the event will mix keynote papers, workshops, installations and performance.

‘his voice’ presents a live voicing of the results of orchestrated Twitter searches. It is an ongoing project that has a number of iterations and outcomes. A body of text, gathered via online searches for “his voice sounded like”, has been edited to develop two- or three-word phrases, which are then used to search Twitter. In the live event the search results are converted to audio using text-to-speech software. This audio is delivered to me via headphones, and I attempt to speak it. The results include URLs, hashtags and other coded elements that are common in tweets. The flow of information meets the limits of vocal ability and the spoken output may spill into stuttering, gaps and incoherence.