News

On Thursday April 30th I will perform ‘flat-head self-tapping’ as part of Care & Attend, at Chelsea School of Art, London.

Care + Attend

Curated by Emma Cocker and Joanne Lee

Part of Unconditional Love, The Society for Artistic Research Spring Event

Care + Attend comprises a constellation of fragments and extracts – of different intensities and durations – where the exposition of research emerges as a poetic and performative event, generating moments of potential resonance and dialogue. This event explores the theme Unconditional Love through the principles (perhaps even methodologies) of care and attention, as applied within specific (artistic) practices of both the everyday and of the self. Beginning with the observation that both curate and curiosity have shared etymology in the term ‘care’, Care + Attend seeks to develop a research vocabulary based on receptivity, openness, fidelity, integrity, intimacy, friendship and commitment (whilst not ignoring the parallel principles of distraction, inattention, the act of closing one’s eyes or of looking away). Cocker and Lee have invited a range of artists & writers to share and reflect on their own processes, philosophies and politics of care and attention, and to present these through live performance, screenings and spoken word. Contributors include Kate Briggs, Daniela Cascella, Belén Cerezo, Emma Cocker, Steve Dutton + Neil Webb, Victoria Gray, Rob Flint, Mark Leahy, Joanne Lee, Martin Lewis, Sarat Maharaj, Brigid McLeer, Hester Reeve, and Lisa Watts.

Care + Attend is part of a 2 day event entitled Unconditional Love organised by The Society for Artistic Research Spring Event taking place 30 April – 1 May 2015 at Chelsea College of the Arts / University of the Arts London.

Central to this event is the notion of unconditional love, which could mean a commitment to the dynamics of open and engaged exchange, or an obsessive pursuit of the unattainable.

The full programme can be found here: http://www.societyforartisticresearch.org/fileadmin/autoren/pdf/unconditional_love.pdf

I will be giving a talk about my work at Exeter Phoenix on Wednesday March 25th. It is part of:

The Last Wednesday Series

A series of artists’ talks in association with Exeter College’s Centre for Creative Industries. Limited places available to the public.

http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/artists-talk-mark-leahy

A short text of mine has appeared in ‘The Opticon – A Newspaper on Privacy and Surveillance’. Produced over two days at Tate Liverpool in February 2015. 5000 copies were printed and distributed around Liverpool. A special blue digital version has been made available on Issuu. Edited by Nathan Jones and Sam Skinner. Designed by Mark Simmonds. Part of Torque #2 – The Act of Reading.

The Opticon Blue

 

My essay titled ‘An Action Movie (for NW): reading time code action’ has just been published as the Afterword to Nathan Walker‘s Action Score Generator, published by ifpthenq.

 

placards between ears roll by observer

“What is it to speak chant whisper a name to hold sing explain these six-word objects planks bags? Naming them will touch on their similarity to or affinity with other forms I know – newspaper headlines, flag slogans, t-shirt statements, postcard captions. These forms each pull behind them strings of context and intention, and push towards their audience, their crowd in particular ways. The sense of event is below behind within the words, as the sets collect tighten carry a performance, and play out a game. Reading here is being present at the event of the words appearing, and witnessing the playing out of the rules for the performance.”

 

More information and purchasing links can be found HERE.

 

On Saturday 24th January 2015 at 4.30pm I will perform ‘flat-head self-tapping’ as part of the From Devon with Love series at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth. Booking and details of times are here: From Devon with Love

Taking elements from Bell’s Standard Elocutionist and from online dictionaries, the performance assembles fragments, word lists, letters, and gestures into a display of awkward flapping interrupted by gnomic expulsions.

An earlier version of the piece was developed for the PW12 weekend at Arnolfini, Bristol; it connects to the EVP commission ‘muster page habit 2’, and to the investigations in ‘answering machine’ which was made for Experimentica 14.

‘flat-head self-tapping’ is programmed as part of a double-bill with #BodyProblems by Alexandra Ogando.