Emergency, The Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool.

1 hr 45mins in 2 sections.

Live action and sound making.

Open#2

The Penthouse, Suite 1, Manchester.

Donated onions, tissues, knife.

2 hours

For 2 hours of my 28th birthday I shared it with those prepared to bring an onion to me. Some of us cried some of us didn’t. We entered the room with one thing and left with another.

How to Unlearn Being Scared of Climbing Trees

Residency with live action investigation

September 2012

5 hour intermittent live climb

During my residency for Wonder[ment] I used my time as a training period during which, rather than learn to climb trees, I attempted to unlearn being scared of climbing trees of investigate what this means. This work is part of an on-going project ‘A Space to Fail/Fly and then Die’ in which physical and psychological apparatus are put into the ring together in a quest for freedom and a triumph over the hole in the ground so many of us live in fear of ending up in.

Growing older brings with it growing restrictions, we play less, and we imagine less. I aim to counteract these often useless restrictions we place on ourselves by trying. If we don’t try, we may avoid failure, but we may also never fly; everyone should fly before they die.

During this training period the process was documented by film maker Pablo Melchor to create a video ‘How To Unlearn Being Scared of Climbing Trees’ made up of experiences, failures and triumphs during the residency/training period. A final tree climb was then performed on September 30th for the Wonder(ment) event intermittently throughout the day long event.

The Philosophical Daredevil

August 2012

Found footage, photograph of father, found audio

1:56

Installed at Rogue Open Studios with Lindsey Bull and Debbie Sharp.

The Philosophical Daredevil is an audio visual exploration into risk and the male attributes that I looked up to in my Father as a child. This short piece is made up from found footage of daredevils, a photograph of my Father and audio of explosions.

Music by Eye

July 2012

Found footage/audio

2:34

A short audio visual piece made from found Camel Cigarette adverts which show an advertising campaign based on good, intelligent and cultural choices.

Death Sex

July 2012

Ants, amp, disco lights, hair clippers, bontempi, synth, circuit bent child’s violin, drum machine, somebody talking about Whitney Houston’s death.

2:35

This track contains ideas about death and failure. I had collected some objects from the street for a sound sculpture and a group of ants were inside a small perfume bottle I had taken to the studio. I planned on going back to the perfume bottle to let them out but got sidetracked with some instruments, when I got back to them they had died. I hadn’t realised there was a valve in the top of the bottle and they could not get back out. I made a track in their memory and brought them back to life for one last two minutes and thirty five seconds as they danced on top of the amplifier to the vibrations of their track under the disco lights.

A work made during a residency at the Merzbarn project ran by Littoral Arts Trust and later exhibited as part of Attributed Sound an audio visual collaboration.

During a residency at the Merzbarn project, which is a project centred on the site where Kurt Schwitters worked on his last Merz piece before he died, I turned the Merzbarn structure itself and it’s contents into an instrument. This involved field recordings of the sounds of water dripping on and from the building, contact with the structure and material of the barn, using the acoustics of within the barn and also collecting objects from the barn. From these collected objects I arranged a sound sculpture inspired by the freedom of Schwitter’s fragmented works and went about ‘extracting’ sound from them with a contact mic. The following video shows the performative ‘extraction’ process at the Shippon Gallery studio.

The resulting track built up from the individual recordings holds the frantic energy and possibility sensed when reflecting on Kurt Schwitter’s work and where he worked. The track which builds and breaks with textures and rhythmical noise mirrors the idea that something unfinished (Schwitter’s last work)/broken or in flux can be hopeless but infinitely hopeful and potent.

Please follow the Attributed Sound project site to the Listen section for my track ‘Sound Sculpture: Merz Arrangement’.

www.attributedsound.com

Werk 

Sept 2011

A live work carried out at FriedrichstadtPalast Friedrichstr, Berlin-Mitte.

40 mins

Video Documentation ( 10 min 19)

Werk was carried out outside of a highly decorated theatre in Mitte, Berlin. The Theatre became my backdrop as I stole the audience during a interval/cigarette break. In this context I played with the time and space dedicated to creation. Inside the conclusions had all been drawn, rehearsals were over. Outside a site for spontaneity however mundane the action was created.

Filmed by Debbie Sharp

Photography by Debbie Sharp

Edited by Rosanne Robertson

An Evening of Dissatisfaction With Free Gifts

Jul 2011, Jul 2012

Memory box, donated objects of monetary value, performance, wine, free dog relaxation music.

2 hours

1 year

2 hours

An evening of performance, exchange and installation exploring consumer control and transparency of character and the intentions of both in relation to traditional forms of authority and currency.

A night of playful participation and critical commentary.

This piece was constructed as a temple of dissatisfaction full of free gifts donated from commercial businesses and from my memory box. During this performance participants were invited to take an object of monetary value or an object of sentimental value. The objects of important sentiment were taken from my memory box which contained objects such as my first shoe and teenage love letters. I sporadically left participants and their new objects ro play 30 second free clips of dog relaxation music. Individuals were asked to return these items to me at Islington Mill one year to the day at the same time.

One notable exchange was my first shoe being taken by artist Alison Ward who has returned to New York and then texas with my shoe and returned it by post one year later.

One year later some of my belongings returned, some did not. An annual act of trust.