Past Events – Page 2 – Project DIVFUSE

Specialist Machines : Mute Frequencies

Sound Installation :

24 May 2025 Saturday 2:30pm – 6pm
25 May Sunday 2:30pm – 6:30pm
Suggested donations : £3

Artist’s Talk :

24 May Saturday 6pm
£6 | 8 places only | Email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

In their ongoing examination of the garment industry Mute Frequencies presents an audiovisual installation that foregrounds the sonic characteristics of specialist machines. Recorded onsite at Central Saint Martins, a college renowned for its fashion programme, the documentation shows an array of machines under operation, including industrial sewing machines, overlockers and buttonhole machines. Each unit has its own sonic signature, mechanical quirks and operational rhythm. These machines are typically used in factories and therefore go unseen/unheard by the general public. Specialist Machines (2025) aims to hone in on the details that shape the unique voice of each machine, while surfacing ideas about manufacture, fast fashion and our relationship to clothes.

Reece 101 Keyhole Buttonhole Machine. Photo by Mute Frequencies

Mute Frequencies is the sound art project of Ilia Rogatchevski and Laura Rogatchevskaia, both former members of the art rock band Sebastian Melmoth. The duo work within the intersections of sound, performance and visual media and often investigate inaudible frequencies of the audio spectrum, the potential of electromagnetic waves to convey information and ideas relating to imperceptibility. They have installed work at various London galleries and performed at festivals including Radio Revolten, Radiophrenia, Supernormal, Open House and End of the Road.

Live at Project DIVFUSE, November 2023. Photo by Jonathan Crabb

@mutefrequencies

Vox Aeterna II : Robin The Fog

Tape Loop Workshop :

Session One : 17 May 2025 Saturday 3:30pm

Session Two : 17 May Saturday 6pm

£8 | 8 places per session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

Following the success of Vox Aeterna I in 2024, Robin The Fog (UK) is returning to Project DIVFUSE to collect more materials for creating new work.

For this workshop and installation, participants will learn about the wonderful world of analogue tape, recording the sounds we find around us, creating loops and building up multiple layers of interlocking sounds and voices that blend, morph and disintegrate together before your very ears – although given that this is vintage technology, nothing is ever certain! What we can guarantee is that we’ll create sounds that nobody else has ever made before and we’ll create them together. The workshop will culminate in a performance featuring all the tape loops that have survived!

Robin The Fog is a Cumbrian-born composer and sound artist originally based in South London. He is the founder of Howlround, a project which creates music entirely from manipulating field recordings on vintage reel to reel tape machines with all digital effects and artificial reverb strictly forbidden, a process once described by Electronic Sound Magazine as ‘conjuring magic’.

Photo by T. Eigeland

@robinthefog

Three-day Residency : Psyché Tropes

Friday 25th April 2025 6pm – 8:30pm
Merkaba Macabre [Live]
Lynne [DJ]
£9.2 (including booking fee) | 10 places only | Psyché Tropes Three-day Residency at Project DIVFUSE [Day 1]

Saturday 26th April 6pm – 8:30pm
Experimental Film Screening
in Surround Sound
£9.2 (including booking fee) | 12 places only | Psyché Tropes Three-day Residency at Project DIVFUSE [Day 2]

Sunday 27th April 3pm – 7pm
Live Spatial Audio w/
Matt Spendlove & Amanda Butterworth
Georgina Brett
Merkaba Macabre
Pagan Red
£6.5 (including booking fee) per session | 10 places only | Psyché Tropes Three-day Residency at Project DIVFUSE [Day 3]

For this three-day event at Project DIVFUSE, Psyché Tropes will present a curated programme of live audiovisual performance, experimental film, and immersive sound. Conceived exclusively for the space, the residency features the work of Merkaba Macabre, Lynne, Georgina Brett, Pagan Red, Matt Spendlove & Amanda Butterworth, alongside a Psyché Tropes experimental 16mm film sequence.

Friday 25th April | 6pm – 8:30pm

For the opening night of the Psyché Tropes Three-day residency at Project DIVFUSE, Merkaba Macabre will perform a new sonic-light composition, experimenting with controlled voltages of colour, optical effects, and synchronised sound and image. This work is part of the artist’s continued research in audiovisual entrainment and subjective time dilation through the observation of rapid stimuli. This performance comes with a photosensitive warning. Viewer discretion is advised. Doors open at 6pm with an ambient experimental set by Lynne.

Merkaba Macabre [Live]

Merkaba Macabre is a multimedia project by Psyché Tropes founder Steven McInerney, combining film, digital media, and sound spatialisation to create expanded forms of cinema, live performances, and installations. McInerney’s work investigates emergent phenomena, using the time-variant systems of media for exploration. Their cinematic work draws upon dichotomous energies, meditating between the sacred and profane. Live performances utilise multi-channel systems, employing a structuralist methodology that values error and reappropriation. From here, speculative narratives take form, often blurring the lines between science and fiction.

Lynne [DJ]

Lynne is a Japanese artist residing between Tokyo and London. Her ever-evolving sound builds immersive atmospheres with textural, obscure and experimental layers. As a resident of Astral Industries and Unknown Species, Lynne is most comfortable in the grey space between genres, where her rhythm is a gravitational force pulling her audience in all directions.

The River in You : Joanna Penso

Installations + Performance :

Session One : 21 March 2025 Friday 7pm [One place left]

Session Two : 22 March Saturday 3:30pm [FULL]

Session Three : 22 March Saturday 6pm [FULL]

Session Four : 23 March Sunday 3:30pm [2 places left]

Session Five : 23 March Sunday 6pm [FULL]

£5 | 6 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets.

Running time : 20 minutes visual and audio installations + 20 minutes performance

The River in You / Runs Right Through / BODY TALKS (2023-2024) by Joanna Penso (UK) were selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 5 Open Call for work that is based on field recordings.

Projection Diptych, 2023 & 2024, 2 channel audio through speakers, projection Runs Right Through 2024 explores the possibilities of listening to nature through the body. Along the banks of the River Don, Sheffield, this piece was made using field recordings taken with a hydrophone dipped into the water, and a stethoscope microphone which captures vibrations of the water seeping into the body, being heard amongst the breath, the heartbeat and digestion.

A meandering sonic journey through the waterways of the body, The River in You 2023 explores the human relationship with water in both the internal and the external. Careering through orifices, tubes and organs this ambient soundscape celebrates the journey water takes into and out of the body, transforming audio recordings taken with a stethoscope microphone into a meditative experience for the listener/viewer.

BODY TALKS 2024 is a live performance piece born out of a period of experimentation during a programme of activity funded by Arts Council England (Develop Your Creative Practice fund, DYCP). Through live amplification of the body this work looks to explore the inner and outer self in relation to performer and audience. Several microphones are strapped to the performer’s body, twisted into a central ‘umbilical cord’ which denotes the limitations of the performance area. Playing with microphone feedback moves the performer to explore the limits of what she can physically and sonically withstand whilst shadow play distorts her physical presence to the audience.

DIVFUSE 8:16 – Open Screening No. 1

1st Open Screening / Group Discussions

16 March 2025 Sunday 4pm – 6:30pm

DIVFUSE 8:16 [Eight Sixteen] is a new line of curatorial project that calls for Standard 8mm, Super 8mm and 16mm films (including video finished films). Artists are expected to show and discuss about the work with the group on the day.

Up to 5 artists will be selected for this first DIVFUSE 8:16 event. Each artist will be given a 20 minutes slot on the day to show and talk about the work with the group, together with experienced film-makers Guy Sherwin and Lynn Loo.

TO ENTER FOR SELECTION:

Email your name, name of the film, year made, original duration, brief description of the work including format (150 words max), 2 images of the work; and a short artist’s bio (150 words max) to divfuse@gmail.com by 1 March 2025.
Submission is free but if the work is selected, participation fee is £6 should the artist wishes to take up the spot.
Maximum duration of the projection is 10 minutes to allow time for the discussions. The 10 minutes can be an extract of a longer piece.
Two films can be submitted but only one piece may be selected.
Video finished films (e.g. scans in digital format) and work in progress projects are acceptable.

DETAILS:

5 artists will be selected for this first DIVFUSE 8:16 event. Each artist will be given approximately 20 minutes slot on the day to show and talk about the work with the group.
Artists are expected to bring along the films or videos on the day.
Projectors will be provided by the venue.
No refund can be arranged once the participation fee is paid.
Participation fee £6 has to be paid before the event to secure a place.
Project DIVFUSE will NOT be responsible for any damage of the films during the screening, particularly due to aging of the materials.

For enquiries, please email divfuse@gmail.com.

Project DIVFUSE would like to thank Guy Sherwin and Lynn Loo for initiating the idea of open screening and for supporting us by providing the projectors for the event.

Daily Concerns – Collected Films : Matt Harding

Screenings :
1 March Saturday 2025 2:30-6pm
2 March Sunday 2:30-6pm
Running Time: approximately 20 mins

Artist Talk :
Session One : 1 March Saturday 6pm
Session Two : 2 March Sunday 6pm [FULL]
£5 | 8 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

After the screenings Matt will discuss some of the processes and approaches to the films as well as sharing some performative pieces developed from elements and details within the films.

Exploring themes of ephemerality, movement and gesture, this collection of short duration works, taken from 2016 – 2024 explores the interplay and relationships between sound, movement and image.

Taking a heavily process based approach, the films frequently are the result of improvisation or working with found objects and materials, shot quickly and edited using social media software, they adopt a naive quality and DIY aesthetic. Dictionary, the centerpiece of the collection is a catalogue of gestures and movements, a compendium of stitched together sonic and non sonic acts.

Dictionary
Profile
Everything’s a game to you
Meandering
Voicemails
On the bridge
Postcard
Stranger on the shore
Throw 1 & 2
Now who’s laughing
Rest positions
Daily Concerns
Eleanor Street
Melody nail
Voicemails
CousCous
Still