A Layer of Liquid Water : Pheobe Riley Law [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

26 August 2022 Friday 5-8pm

27 & 28 August Saturday & Sunday 2:30-6:30pm

Running Time : 34 minutes. Free Entry

This is one of the four exhibitions of work and artists selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 3 – an Open Call for pieces that are based on field recordings. We are pleased that this round of the Open Call is funded by the Arts Council England and the work was jointly selected between Project DIVFUSE and sound artist and tutor Jose Macabra.


amongst the references there are ones to borders;

between the liquid & the frozen

the solid and the porous state of walls along a cattle run

and between narrative and the shape of language as a sounding object.

‘Working on this piece, during a year where plans were constantly being shifted, created pockets of time that seemed to drift between the day-to-day and a suspended sense of progression. With A layer of liquid water (2020/21) I attempt to explore the aesthetics of certain located sounds; the memories contained in recordings from trips to Oslo and through others which reference ideas of the static and the transitory (restriction and movement). I have an interest in words as sound, with their meanings more fluid, and this became an important, refreshing element of the piece. With many thanks to Jenny Berger Myhre and Line Elkjær for their readings of the texts. ‘ – Pheobe Riley Law

Desert & Crummock : Stephen Shiell [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

2 September 2022 Friday 5-8pm

3 & 4 September Saturday & Sunday 2:30 – 6:30pm

Running time : 28 minutes. Free Entry

This is one of the four exhibitions of work and artists selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 3 – an Open Call for pieces that are based on field recordings. We are pleased that this round of the Open Call is funded by the Arts Council England and the work was jointly selected between Project DIVFUSE and sound artist and tutor Jose Macabra.


Desert (2019) – from the album ’Sonance’, released on Linear Obsessional recordings

Natural radio in a desert that goes on forever
obsidian chimes under the earth
life waiting under the salt

Natural radio field recordings made in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada using a very low frequency receiver constructed by Stephen P McGreavy, and a self-created magnetic loop aerial. Additional studio recordings by Stephen Shiell: Obsidian needle chimes – mined in Nevada and well known for their musical quality.

Voice by Hannah White is inspired by the story of the fairy shrimps, whose eggs lie encased in the dry playa soil of alkali flats until the rains come, flooding the desert and prompting the eggs to hatch, grow and reproduce.


Crummock 2019 – from the album ‘Kyem’, released on Industrial Coast

At Crummock water, in the Lake District , a contact mic receives the breeze, vibrating harp strings. Omni-directional mics filter the drone of the wind through a chimney, and a hydrophone hears rushing water and a bell, struck and submerged.

Translations : Christopher Steenson [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

9 September 2022 Friday 5-8pm

10 & 11 September Saturday & Sunday 2:30-6:30pm

Running Time : 12 minutes. Free Entry

This is one of the four exhibitions of work and artists selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 3 – an Open Call for pieces that are based on field recordings. We are pleased that this round of the Open Call is funded by the Arts Council England and the work was jointly selected between Project DIVFUSE and sound artist and tutor Jose Macabra.


Connemara Landscape (Wind Study) (2022)

Connemara Landscape uses the post-impressionist paintings of Belfast-born painter Paul Henry as a departure point for creating a ‘sonic landscape’. Focusing on the wind as its subject matter, the artwork is an attempt to collaborate with the weather, drawing on anthropologist Tim Ingold’s idea of ‘correspondences’ (where humans respond with sensitivity, care and judgement to other beings, matter and elements).

The work explores the idea of collaboration and correspondence by using a number of sound recording techniques that focus on ‘macro’ soundscapes, to ‘micro’ moments of resonance and musicality, created by objects and plants interacting with the wind. The work was created in March 2022, while on residency at Interface, Connemara, situated in the remote locale of the Inagh Valley.


False Detection (2019–21)

False Detection is composed of sound recordings from the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) exist beyond the threshold of human perception, yet envelop the environment around us, emanating from electronic devices such as cellphone towers and WiFi transmitters. The risks of EMFs are debated amongst different communities, with research suggesting that EMFs can have detrimental effects on some forms of wildlife.

For False Detection, the artist collected a series of audio recordings of EMFs and played them to a mobile phone app called BirdNet, which uses a machine learning algorithm to identify bird sounds in the user’s surrounding environment. By iteratively manipulating the sound recordings and letting the BirdNet app listen to them, the artist was able to ‘trick’ the app into thinking that the EMF sounds being played were being made by birds residing in the local area. In this sense, the artwork exposes the hidden architectures and processes of the algorithm; making it heard.

FUMP HULDER : Martyn Riley [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

16 September 2022 Friday 5-8pm [Artist will be present 5:30-7pm]

17 & 18 September Saturday & Sunday 2:30-6:30pm [Artist will be present 2:30-4:30pm both days]

Running Time : 25 minutes. Free Entry

This is one of the four exhibitions of work and artists selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 3 – an Open Call for pieces that are based on field recordings. We are pleased that this round of the Open Call is funded by the Arts Council England and the work was jointly selected between Project DIVFUSE and sound artist and tutor Jose Macabra.


FUMP HULDER, or ‘Essence of the hidden’ (translation from the late 18th century Devonshire dialect), is a document of several days spent exploring the acoustic ecology, landscape, and geology of Permian Period Dartmoor, formed some 280 million years ago.

‘As well as (re)opening my deep-listening practice with this short study, mediated via sound and the environment; textural and elemental, it also reasserted the visual beauty without the constant reminder of humanity and its footprint.

Employing different microphones, I located and recorded the sound hidden and unavailable to the human ear. The pure sounds of flowing water beneath the surface tension, the crack and lurching of different trees, the elements on rusty barbed fences and farm gates. But not ignoring the often ignored such as the throbbing rumble of the wind canopy within huge forests and the change in acoustics and sound of areas completely hidden by morning fog.

The few film pictures taken are all closely connected to the sound experience and in particular, recordings made, so became a psycho-geographic locational pairing.’ – Martyn Riley

Martyn Riley is a London-based, Derbyshire born, Sound Artist and Experimental Musician, focusing on associations between sound, experience, memory and the physical. He employs a multitude of recording techniques utilizing new and older analogue methods of sound composition. Manipulating sonic landscapes, challenging the listeners perceptions of personal and physical environments inhabited. 

Venus Smiles : Tabita Cargnel [PAST]

Sound Sculpture Exhibition :

1 & 8 October 2022 Saturday 2:30-4pm

2 & 9 October Sunday 2:30-6:30pm

Free Entry

Live Performances :

Session 1 – 30 September Friday 6-6:45pm | Session 2 – 30 September Friday 7-7:45pm

Session 3 – 1 October Saturday 4-4:45pm | Session 4 – 1 October Saturday 5:30-6:15pm

Session 5 – 7 October Friday 6-6:45pm | Session 6 – 7 October Friday 7-7:45pm

Session 7 – 8 October Saturday 4-4:45pm | Session 8 – 8 October Saturday 5:30-6:15pm

£5 | 8 places each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for ticketing

The Venus Smiles sculpture at DIVFUSE will display a minor diminished 9 chord materialised in copper tubes which ring like church bells. In the evenings there will be musical performances on the instrument by the inventor Tabita Cargnel and other musicians coming from classical and experimental backgrounds. Also viewers with and without musical education, especially children, are very welcome to play and join the performances as verbally announced before each piece. The resonating copper tube system – a phenomenon called ‘tensegrity’ – can be played by using your hands, a bow, mallets or your voice. People can experience actively, but intuitively, how sound can make us feel and that regardless of their level of musical education they create immersive music that can initiate a somewhat non-judgemental but healing state of mind full of expression and flow.

The first sustainability focused Venus Smiles sculpture was opened to the public in 2021 with a musical premiere in Schwerte, Germany. Its sound is designed to transition from the newly built, sleek and harsh metal sound to a more warmly coated sound of rust and patina. Sound samples, improvisations and musical pieces played on the German Venus Smiles sculpture will be played through the speakers in the daytime of the exhibition days.

DIVFUSE Sound Archive Open Call No. 4

This Open Call is now closed. Thanks to all the artists who took time to make a submission. Selected pieces will be announced in the second week of November 2022.

***Open Call*** for sound work that is based on field recordings. Deadline for Open Call No. 4 is 27th October 2022

We are thankful that DIVFUSE Sound Archive Open Call No. 3 and 4 are supported and funded by the Arts Council England through the National Lottery Project Grants. For more information on ACE, please visit www.artscouncil.co.uk.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THE SUBMISSION:

1) Text on the each piece (250 words maximum). This shall include the name, year and duration of the work, together with brief descriptions on ways of presentation (for example, 2 channels audio through speakers/headphones etc)

2) Artists’ bio (200 words maximum).

3) A link to the work. It could be a link to Soundcloud for example but please do not send us the file to download.

4) Send the submission through by email to divfuse@gmail.com on or before 27th October 2022.

OTHER CONDITIONS:

1) Up to two pieces of work can be submitted by each artist (or group of artists who work together).

2) Each piece shall be at least 12 minutes long and can be made up of different parts.

3) Examples of work include pure sound from field recordings and compositions based on the recorded materials. Visual and other elements may be included if they are part of the work. The work itself should still be primarily sound based.

4) Selected pieces will EACH be exhibited for a weekend (Friday to Sunday) for free in November/early December 2022 at Project DIVFUSE micro digital and multi-media art gallery, London. There is no payment to the artists but Project DIVFUSE will offer the following:

* micro gallery space (5m x 3m) to carry out the exhibition.

* basic equipments for use during the exhibitions inside the gallery, including 4 x small Genelec speakers on stands, a Genelec subwoofer, a projector and a laptop to play the file(s) from.

* management of the exhibition including invigilating the space and promotion on social media.