Current role and availability

As a Research Fellow in Connected Environments at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, I explore opportunities for using digital and mobile communications technologies to engage people with questions of spatial and environmental justice. I am available to deliver practice-related workshops for PhD students, visiting lectures and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Please contact me to find out more. 

Walking’s New Movements

I presented a paper with Duncan Hay on Walking in Tree Time as part of the Walking’s New Movements Conference, Plymouth, 2019. Our chapter developed from that talk has been published in Walking Bodies, edited by Helen Billinghurst, Claire Hind and Phil Smith (Triarchy Press, 2020).

Listening Wood Launch

The Listening Wood launched on Hampstead Heath in March 2019. The result of a collaboration between artists and computer scientists from the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, and the City of London Corporation arborists, The Listening Wood invites visitors to generate a poetic record of their walk via sms or thelisteningwood.com

PhD awarded

I was awarded a PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, in January 2019. My practice-related thesis, ‘Making a Scene in London and Rio de Janeiro: Invisible Theatre and Urban Performance after Augusto Boal (1931-2009)’, investigates performative strategies for spatio-political engagement. This project was possible thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the UCL Doctoral School.

The Listening Wood, 2019

The Listening Wood is a site-specific installation and digital poetic walk around fourteen of Hampstead Heath’s ancient and veteran trees. Visitors to Golders Hill Park are able to interact with the work via either sms or thelisteningwood.com to generate a poetic record of their encounter with the trees, recalling the Romantic tradition of the Heath.

The Listening Wood is the result of a collaboration with computer scientists from Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, and the City of London Corporation arborists. It was possible thanks to funding from PETRAS and the EPSRC. Text messages are charged at standard network rates.

Ghost Note, 2018

The cross that marks the border between Esztergom, Hungary and Štúrovo, Slovakia can be read in the classical convention of music notation as a ghost note, that is, a percussive note with no discernible pitch. For this project, musicians in both towns and internationally interpreted the found score, with their responses integrated into an audio loop.

Ghost note was created and exhibited as part of an arts residency as the 43rd Bridge Guard between April-June 2018, supported by the Štúrovo Cultural Association. Giclée print and looped audio, dimensions 119 cm x 84 cm, duration 07’34”.

Rise, 2017

A vocal interpretation of found sea-level data, performed at Roaming Room, London by Sandy Grierson, Leah Lovett and Naomi Siderfin. Duration 4’09”.

(performance stills)

Contracorrente / Upstream, 2016

A telenovela (Brazilian soap opera) based on Herbert Read’s political sci-fi, ‘The Green Child’ (1935), played out between actors in London and Rio de Janeiro against the backdrop of London’s Olympic landscape using blue-screen technology. All three episodes were performed before studio audiences on board the Floating Cinema (London) and at CASA 24 (Rio de Janeiro), and live streamed via UP Projects’ website on 30th July, 2016. Contracorrente / Upstream was conceived by Leah Lovett and created by Leah Lovett and Maria Eugenia Lombardini in partnership with UP Projects and Foundation for Future London with performers Freddie King, Raphael dos Santos, and Farelis Silva (Rio de Janeiro) Rocio Galan, Tessa Parr, and Rafael Pereira (London). Running duration (3 episodes), approx. 60’00”.

(performance stills, photographs courtesy UP Projects and Foundation for Future London)

Project Platform, 2016

A live set and audio recording of experimental music and sound inspired by Crossrail. Five Newham-based artists and musicians each responded to one leg of the train journey from Liverpool Street – Ilford. In journey order, they were Lindsay West & James Russo, -hyfn, Rob DesRoches & Stew Simpson, Sally Labern and Paddy Conn. The first live set with the Project Platform band (Grace Banks, Alain Man and Prithpal Singh) took place at Coffee7, Forest Gate, on 22 September, 2016. The recording sound engineer was Nick Trepka. Project Platform was conceived and coordinated by Lloyd Jeans and Leah Lovett with support from Newham Council, MTR-Crossrail and the Estate of Mary Eileen Jeans. Performance duration approx. 20 minutes.

(performance stills, photographs courtesy Andrew Baker)

Light Transmission, 2015

A light installation featuring songs about light from the British Isles, broadcast on 87.9FM. Light Transmission was commissioned by Wellcome Collection with UCL for Bloomsbury Festival 2015 Radio equipment supplied by RPL Radio. Sound engineering by Nick Trepka. Dimensions variable, programme duration 1’16″05.

(installation views, photographs courtesy Wellcome Collection)

Contra Band, 2014

A performance that brought together musicians and audiences in Brazil and the UK for an experimental live performance of songs censored in both countries between 1964-1985. These dates mark the duration of the military dictatorship in Brazil. The music performed included songs by the Beatles, Chico Buarque, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Gilberto Gil, the Sex Pistols, Caetano Veloso and more. Contra Band was commissioned by UP Projects, Somewhere and Live Art Development Agency for the Floating Cinema 2014 Extra-International programme, London, and Casa 24, Rio de Janeiro. Duration 60’00”.

(performers: Nicholas Underwood and Raphael dos Santos, photographs: Nina Pope)

Sock Puppet State, 2014

A performance workshop exploring political representation and modes of speech through near ventriloquism. Created for Flaming Skirt Festival, Derbyshire, duration 50’00”.

(workshop participant, photograph: Stella Francis)

Support, 2014

A chorus of male voices reenacts the sounds of women in the late stages of labour as recalled by their birthing partners, performance duration 8’00” approx (excerpts 4’00”).

(performance still, photograph courtesy Ludovic des Cognets/SMASH LAB)

Murmuration, 2013

Performance and limited edition print for performers, commissioned for A Small Hiccup at Grand Union, Birmingham and touring.

A group makes a loop from a gallery space, through the city, a shopping centre, the Bullring, an industrial park, and back again. We move at arms’-length from one another, and from others who move through the group. We clap. When one rhythm connects we listen, still clapping, for a different rhythm to take hold.

I am surprised by how many join in. A driver hoots his horn. A swagger of twenty-something men up for a Friday night jeer, “YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF WANKERS”, then clap. They laugh. We laugh. A couple at the traffic lights joins the group for as long as our routes coincide. Others don’t appear to notice us at all. A man smiles and, bringing hands together, sets us off on a different beat. A police car tacks alongside. Then, for a moment, looking up, birds flock directly overhead.

(installation view, photograph: Patrick Dandy and Grand Union)
(performance still, photograph: Patrick Dandy and Grand Union)

Operation Goose Down, 2012

Performance and combative game. Three camouflaged agents draw salt boundaries on a gallery floor, gradually claiming as much space as possible, then sweep up and redraw their territory whenever a member of the audience crosses the boundary-line. Created by TRIPOD for Platform 1 at Camden Art Centre, duration variable.

(performance still)

Ghost in the Machine, 2011

Performance created by TRIPOD (an ongoing collaboration with Katy Beinart and Helen Rawling) for Surplus to Requirements?, duration variable.

(performance stills, photographs: Thomas Jenkins)

Sounding, 2011

The result of a collaboration with Teign Diving Centre, this project comprises audio from a hydrophonic (underwater microphone) recording of the 1918 shipwrecked Bretagne; wall-text echoing stories from contemporary divers drawn to the site; and series of ink, pencil and beeswax drawings inspired by the Greco-Roman myth of the Sirens. Commissioned for A Cirlcle, Plymouth, 2011.

(installation view)

Conversation Piece, 2010

Two unidentified performers initiated scripted conversations with unsuspecting audience members for the opening of the Intervention Gallery, Kensal Green Cemetery.

(performance still, photograph: Adam J Brown)
(card)

Filter, 2009

Performance in which an actor relays news feeds streamed from Reuters’ UK website whilst drinking from a selection of Three Barrels brandy, Gordons gin, Smirnoff vodka and Famous Grouse whiskey, duration variable.

(performer: Sandy Grierson, photograph: Sarah Pickering)
(performer: Catherine Adams, photograph: Sarah Pickering)

Catherine Day, 2008

Performance of a woman, played by 36 women, waiting on a platform. The character is based on the woman depicted by Paul Day in his monumental sculpture, The Meeting Place, commissioned for the reopening of St. Pancras above. Duration 12 hours, performed in 20 minute intervals.

(performance still)

Conducting, 2008

Carousel of 35mm slides changed at approximately 3 second intervals by the gallery attendant, projected dimensions variable, duration 02’30” approx.

(installation view)

Audition Piece (Dead Cowboy), 2008

Sculpture, costume, performance in which a number of actors play dead whilst rocking the barrel from side to side, dimensions 1300x1000x1200mm approx., duration variable.

(installation view)
(costume detail)
(performance still)

Their Actions However Intended, 2008

Script, performance for two actors who follow all of the unspoken text from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Lluisa Cunille’s The Meeting, each one directing and directed by the other, duration variable.

(poster)
(script extract – click to enlarge)

Rise

Rise, a vocal interpretation of sea-level data, was performed on 22nd February, 2017 for the opening of The Intercontinental, an exhibition of works by Slade PhD students responding to the Post-Truth Society at Roaming Room, London.

Engaged Urbanism

Contributor to Ben Campkin and Ger Duijzings (eds.) anthology, Engaged Urbanism: Cities and Methodologies (2016), which can be purchased from I.B. Tauris and all major bookshops.

Light Transmission

Light Transmission aired on 87.9 FM in and around the Wellcome Collection between 22nd-25th October, 2015 as part of the Bloosmbury Festival 2015 event, Playing with Light. Commissioned by the Wellcome Collection with UCL, Light Transmission is a light installation that charts a changing relationship to visible light, featuring music from the middle ages to the present day by artists from around the British Isles. More information here.

Beam

Beam is a new interactive sound and light installation created in collaboration with musician and physicist Geoff Cottrell. It was displayed on 9th November, 2015 as part of Perpetuo’s chamber music concert, Heavenly Sights, an evening of music inspired by space, flight and motion. More information and booking here

Counterpath Press, Denver

I travelled to Denver and Montreal in June 2014 to present performance work at Counterpath Press, Denver and the Hemi Encuentro, Montreal, with support from the Arts Council England AIDF and a Jean Spencer and Malcolm Hugues Award from the Slade.