Day Two: Friday 8 November
Bathway Theatre
6-7pm: Concert 5 – Immersive 360
Mark Brown and Angela McArthur – Bil Kumari
Bil Kumari is a 360 immersive work that integrates the everyday life of Bil Kumari Gurum, an older Nepalese woman living in Woolwich, with the experience of the audience. Bil Kumari is an older Nepalese immigrant living in sheltered housing in Woolwich.
Born in the mountains of Nepal she navigates a disjointed, chaotic and fractured London, displaced and precarious, unable to speak the language, Bil Kumari fights to be seen and heard.
The work’s focus on everyday, embodied experience acts to communicate ways of knowing beyond sight and sound and creates a way of relating as a form of exhibition. This is a work about communication, how, without it we are lost, rendered absent from those in our communities and society. How does this affect us, how do we connect, not just with the people around us but with our environment? How, as inhabitants of both our own bodies and it within the city we all live, can we understand, empathise and evolve together. How can we know each other?
By foregrounding cutting-edge technologies and sensory methods, the work looks at the alienation Bil Kumari feels. In combining technologies and subject, the film attempts to narrow the distance between the two. Bil Kumari’s experience becomes ours.
What can we know about someone, as a result of the technologies of proximity which mediate our listening and seeing? How can the details made audible and visible through such mediated intimacies, form relations in the face of ‘otherness’ gaps, such as age or culture? Part sonically elongated composition, part ethnographic film, Bil Kumari re-organises the relationship between sound and image. Somewhere between installation and documentary, Bil Kumari makes full use of immersive formats to offer sensorial ways of answering the questions posed above, through alternative ways of knowing, and being known.
Angela McArther is a renowned researcher and sound artist specializing in spatial sound at University College London (UCL). Her work seamlessly blends art and science, exploring the depths of auditory perception and the immersive potential of spatial audio technologies. With a background in both music and acoustic engineering, Angela’s unique interdisciplinary approach has made significant contributions to the fields of sound design and auditory research. Her projects often involve innovative uses of spatial sound to create immersive experiences in various contexts, including virtual reality, theater, and interactive installations. At UCL, Angela leads cutting-edge research in spatial sound, focusing on how auditory spatial awareness can enhance user experience and engagement. She collaborates with a diverse range of departments, from psychology to computer science, fostering a holistic understanding of how sound influences human perception and cognition. Angela’s work has been showcased at numerous international conferences and exhibitions, earning her recognition and awards for her pioneering contributions to the field. She is also a dedicated educator, mentoring students and young researchers in the art and science of spatial sound. Beyond her academic and artistic endeavors, Angela actively engages with the broader community through workshops, public lectures, and collaborations with industry professionals, advocating for the integration of advanced sound technologies in everyday applications. Her passion for sound as a medium for storytelling and experience design continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of auditory art and science.
Mark Brown is a Character Animator, Previs Supervisor, photographer and film maker. With over 20 years in the industry Mark has worked in tv, commercials and film with some of the industries most visionary directors. Mark has worked for internationally renowned VFX production houses MPC, Double Negative, Framestore, Cinesite and Mainframe on fully animated features, as well as Previs Sequences and Post Production. During his career he has been nominated for a VES Award for his animation of the dragons in Game of Thrones, Season One. His work has taken him as far afield as Beijing where he supervised final animation on Jean Jaques Annaud’s 2019 movie Wolf Totem, to Budapest for Previs supervision on Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood and most recently Bulgaria for Neil Marshall’s Hellboy. Originally trained as a 2D character animator Mark has always had a passion for storytelling, illustration, visual effects, photography and art. Above everything else he believes the most important aspect of any script is the narrative, and finding the most visually engaging way to convey this. As well as animation, Mark makes documentaries and is an experienced photographer with work exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery.
Bernardo Varela & George Hammond-Hagan – Gratitude
Bernardo Varela is an artist working with digital and situated experiences through installations, audiovisual performances and interactive systems. Bernardo draws on experimental psychology, his research correlates multi-sensory ambiguity and the effects of digital technologies on attentional bias. Using everyday stimuli as source material, his work addresses issues relating to behavioural predictability and sensory filtering through aesthetic experiments that augment our relation with the environment. Alongside his experiential work bevarela has over two decades of experience as a visual effects artist. This extensive expertise in the field of moving images equipped him with a practical understanding of image creation and the intricate use of natural phenomena in visual storytelling
George Hammond-Hagan is a songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur with roots in the 90s music scene. Opening for Boys II Men, songwriting for Salt-N-Pepa, and winning a prestigious Ivor Novello Award, he’s always been a dream-chaser. Beyond music, he founded the award-winning ed-tech business Studytracks, combining music and education. George’s journey led him to explore the therapeutic power of sound, resulting in the creation of The Sound Shift, who bring positive shifts through sound, breath, meditation, and mindset, recently crafting soundscapes for Apple..
Jo Hyde – Signal to Noise (360 refit)
Signal to Noise is a live audiovisual performance which has been through a number of versions over the last year or so. This is the first outing of a fully-immersive version with Ambisonic sound and 360 degree video.
The work is an exploration of the phenomenology of noise and how it interacts with our perception, particularly when combining sound and image. The material I am using often skirts the edges of comprehensibility, playing with illusion and attention, persistence of vision and vanishing points. I’m interested in certain types of natural phenomena – bird murmurations, patterns of plant growth, cloud and wave formations – and how these are similar to the chaotic patterns found in analogue signals. I explicitly play with this similarity in this performance, aiming to bring a timeless and organic quality to the digital realm.
Joseph Hyde’s background is in electroacoustic music, but his work has moved into diverse areas, incorporating a wide variety of stylistic influences, live electronics, audiovisual and immersive elements. He is a regular collaborator, usually with non-musicians: dancers, visual artists, technologists and scientists. He is an Emeritus Professor in Creative Music Technology at Bath Spa University, and is currently engaged in a number of freelance projects exploring new combinations of immersive sound and image. Currently he is working full-time on the Celestial Live project (supported by InnovateUK), developing methods to fly drone light shows using interactive control.
And/Or, TDC Tunes, and 2-Digit Visuals – Magenta
Magenta is a panoramic audiovisual experience that explores the fragility and beauty of a planet in a parallel universe. The landscape dynamically transforms through earthquakes and volcanic activity, unveiling a place that is both desolate and beautiful.
This collaborative piece is brought to life by the artist duo And/Or, TDC Tunes, and 2-Digit Visuals. Originally conceived through a live improvisation, the visuals were later created using a process known as prompt travelling, which is based on diffusion algorithms.
And/Or is a live improvised electronic music project by Rob Parton and Julius Aitken. As a duo they compose and perform live improvised music spanning an eclectic mix of ambient electronica, trip hop, breaks, and techno.
TDC Tunes is a live modular artist and sound experimenter who performs regularly around London and on Twitch.
2 Digit Visuals (aka Sadler) is a visual artist and VJ exploring the intersection between motion visuals and music. His work uses a range of visual techniques including generative, real-time interactive, AI video and audio-reactive techniques to create unique visual experiences.
Chris Speed – CSV – Live 360 Spatial Sound Performance
In a rare ambient set, CSV will be performing on the Genelec Loudspeaker Orchestra in glistening 360 sound. Expect waves of synthesiser pads, ethereal choirs with a powerful low end. This will be visually accompanied by Lovecraftian creatures rendered with Unreal Engine 5.
Chris Speed Visuals (CSV) is a London based audiovisual artist, DJ and educator working at the intersection of art and digital technology. CSV’s music crosses genre boundaries by incorporating elements from grime to hyperpop as well as glitch music. This dark underground sound comes from his teens immersed in dingy East London club nights. His practice uses real-time performance instruments consistent across music videos, live visuals and immersive installations. Chris’s artworks have been exhibited internationally at new media art venues and music festivals such as Peckham Digital, Watermans, Arebyte Gallery, ArtFutura, Firstsite, CURRENTS, Amsterdam Dance Event and Digerati Experimental Media Festival.