Graduates 2021: Alex Lewis-Whitaker: Digital Music and Sound Arts BA

“Many courses in this area seemed more focused on the technical considerations within a recording studio whereas Brighton allowed me to interpret the course how I wanted to and take it in my own direction. It was clear from attending the open day that there was an emphasis on pushing boundaries in terms of both content and format, so it was exciting to see how the initial ideas for my final project evolved, under the guidance of my tutors, into the multi-dimensional experience that it became.”

 

Hi Alex – please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

“I am an audiovisual artist from south-west London, currently exploring the complications surrounding cultural identity in a globalised world and the necessity for a kind of truthful meta-culture within a multicultural society. My final project, Wɔpo, is a digital mindmap and live performance that illustrates a building of bridges between my ancestral lineages of British and Asante (Ghana). A portmanteau of the vocal-oriented ‘doo-wop’ music of mid-20th century African-American communities and ‘ɔpo’, the Asante-Twi word for ‘ocean’, Wɔpo seeks to amplify the voices of ancestors which (appear to) have been drowned out across the Atlantic passage. Despite a resolve to respond to these calls for ‘Sankofa’, whereby the wisdom of your ancestors becomes a guide for your future, Wɔpo makes light of such problems as ‘double-consciousness’ and the lack of writing systems that document sub-Saharan cultures from the emic viewpoint. It is a journey through ancient myth, religion, ritual, proverb, etymology, conspiracy, and diasporic history, narrated through an immersive and semi-improvisational multimedia performance. Though the performances have come to an end for now, the mindmap and clips from the performances will soon be accessible via the online degree show and my website.

“My preceding audiovisual project, Morgo, was recently broadcast as part of The Joyous Thing, hosted by the experimental music network Outlands, which was an exciting experience made possible thanks to my tutors and the DMSA network.”

How have you found your course and time at Brighton?

“Over my time at Brighton I feel that I have matured much quicker than I would have otherwise, both as a person and as an artist. I have been lucky to receive so much attention from my tutors given the small scale of my course and their unwavering enthusiasm for advising all of us on our projects. My proximity to the sea, particularly throughout my third year, has also had a positive psychological effect while attempting to complete my work under what were frustrating unforeseen circumstances. The highlights of my time here include our ‘DMSA Night’ in second year, where I was given the opportunity to perform alongside my coursemates at Komedia, and more recently the final day of ‘private views’ for our final projects, which included a touching surprise celebration of our efforts, to round out our time here.

How did you choose your course – why did you choose to study Digital Music and Sound Arts BA?

“Fine art had been my passion at school ever since I was little, and I continued with it at A-Level, but I wanted to add audio into my creative practice so I looked for courses that offered me the possibility of working in both the aural and visual realms. Many courses in this area seemed more focused on the technical considerations within a recording studio whereas Brighton allowed me to interpret the course how I wanted to and take it in my own direction. It was clear from attending the open day that there was an emphasis on pushing boundaries in terms of both content and format, so it was exciting to see how the initial ideas for my final project evolved, under the guidance of my tutors, into the multi-dimensional experience that it became.”

What are your plans after graduation?

“I will return to London and continue to play with this idea of ‘performing’ the research of my projects rather than presenting only the project itself, but in a more accessible format than the private views I did in the DMSA studios, such as adapting it for my YouTube channel. This research is likely to go deeper into ancient African empires, cultures and mythologies and attempt to answer some of the difficult questions put forward in Wɔpo, while also ensuring my art and music is original but still authentic to its cross-cultural roots. I am also considering doing an MA degree while in London but I have only been able to go to online open days so I’m still hesitant to make a decision on that front.”

Visit Alex’s website

Follow Alex on Instagram @alexlw.art

Check out Alex’s YouTube: Alex Lewis-Whitaker

Check out Alex on Spotify: Alex Lewis-Whitaker

The Space in Sound – Lighthouse 25th March

Lighthouse presents The Space in Sound: a day of talks and an evening performance exploring ways sound can occupy space.

This will take place at The Old Market on 25th March 2020.

They’ve offered us a discounted group price of 10 tickets for the price of 9. If we do a group booking this would mean we could get tickets for the symposium and the evening performances for £22.50 per person.

Please get in touch with me if you’re interested in taking advantage of this discount.

A day of talks and an evening performance exploring ways sound can occupy space

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/the-space-in-sound

WARM UP FESTIVAL call out

WARM UP FESTIVAL

ARTIST CALL OUT
 
We are looking for emerging artists/designers to showcase at our event and have small grants available. Our deadline for applications is 20th Feb 2020.

Warm Up Festival, Aug 21-23 2020, is a new three-day music festival set in the pine forests of Hertfordshire: 
https://www.warmupfestival.co.uk/.

Our vision is to engage all the senses in an immersive environment by bringing captivating contemporary art to our woodland setting. We are looking for art in the form of unique sculptural works, curious installations, bespoke light pieces, performance art, and video work either pre-existing or site-specific proposals.


‘Home is where the house is’ is our family motto. As such, we are particularly interested to find artists that explore the concept of ‘home’ because community is at the heart of our festival. A take on the theme can be abstract or entirely literal. We are also open to other artworks/proposals that do not necessarily adhere to this concept.


Warm Up is a visionary pillar of the London club scene, earning itself a reputation as one of the most respected dance music communities in the city, famed for its legendary parties, welcoming atmosphere and forward-thinking sound palette, representing the best in techno, house, progressive and electronica.
 
Please send proposals to: karen.wuf@gmail.com

AUDINT UNSOUND: UNDEAD 23rd Jan 2020 @ Fabrica, Brighton – BOOK NOW (free to DMSA students)

Don’t miss out: Free to All DMSA Students!

(Non-DMSA Tickets: Workshop £8/5 concs. Evening £8/5 concs. Combined ticket: £12/8 concs.)

AUDINT
UNSOUND: UNDEAD
A daytime workshop with evening performances from the sonic arts group AUDINT and their affiliates.

AUDINT is a London-based art collective operating across the fields of sound, performance, theory/fiction, film and installation. Following recent exhibitions and performances at Spike Island and Tate Britain, this event opens a window into the themes explored in their recent Book UNSOUND: UNDEAD. Working at the intersection between the latest sonic theory and practice, AUDINT push contemporary sonic making and thinking into new realms, between the real and the fictional, the living and the dead.

This workshop and live event extend the collective’s research with performances and presentations from AUDINT members and collaborators, including Eleni Ikon, Agnès Gayraud, Jenna Sutela, and Anne Duffau (TBC)
www.audint.net

Afternoon seminar // 2-4pm // SPECIFIC DISSONANCES
Eleni Ikoniadou, Al Cameron and Caleb Madden will explore the perceptual and cultural peripheries of the sonic in a seminar based around contributions to the recent AUDINT – UNSOUND: UNDEAD book.

For the past ten years the group has been researching the periphery of sonic perception (unsound) and its potential to activate a continual intersection between fiction and fact, pressuring thought to become something other than what it has been. The group’s recent volume Unsound: Undead collates 64 new essays to probe how unsound serves to activate the undead. Contributors from a variety of disciplines chart these warped zones, mapping out a zigzagging timeline stretching from the 8th century BC (the song of the Sirens), to 2013 (acoustic levitation), and speculatively extending into 2057 (the emergence of holographic and holosonic phenomena).

Evening event // 7:30-11:30PM // UNSOUND: UNDEAD * brief descriptor for each act to follow.
A series of live performance:
Eleni Ikoniadou and Caro: The Lament – (voice and live electronics)
Agnes Gayraud – (voice and glossolalia piece)
Jenna Sutela, and Anne Duffau
Harrga

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE EMAIL: s.w.mallinder@brighton.ac.uk

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Eleni Ikoniadou is a member of AUDINT and Senior Tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. Her research is situated at the intersection between computational culture, theory-fiction and audiovisual practice. Her latest monograph is The Rhythmic Event: Art, Media, and the Sonic (MIT Press, 2014). She is co-editor of the Media Philosophy… Read more »
www.urbanomic.com

https://www.urbanomic.com/book/unsoundundead/

For as long as recording and communications technologies have existed, the potential of the vibrational continuum that connects sound to infrasound, ultrasound and other inaudible frequencies has been evoked to access anomalous zones of transmission between the realms of the living and the dead. For the past ten years the AUDINT group has been researching…
www.urbanomic.com

 

DMSA: DEBUTANTS

Monday 9th December 2019, 8pm
KOMEDIA, Brighton | MAP
FB Event Page

EXPERIMENTAL | LIVE PERFORMANCES | ELECTRONICA | DJ’S

DMSA:Debutants is a showcase of live music performed by students from the Digital Music and Sound Arts course at the University of Brighton.

An event that will encompass a wide range of different sonic and visual material, with live acoustic and electronic music – DMSA:Debutants is a celebration of sound without the constraints of genre.

8PM-1AM
£3 OTD

INCLUDING:
___________________________________
Experimental Music
Live Performance
DJ Sets
Acoustic Sets
Noise Music
Ambient Music
Techno Music
Projections

PERFORMANCES:
____________________________________
Meller & Jared Swift
Ike Goldman
Aidan
Hippo Island
MAL
Cyphon & OBZERV

DJs:
_____________________________________
Patrick Mckeever Crowcroft
Jack James
Finley Mist

Professional Practice Masterclass: Fraser Owen

Monday 18 November, 5.30pm
Performance Studio, GP

We are happy to have Fraser Owen, one of our current students presesenting on our next masterclass. Fraser, under his alias Vince Vanity, has been producing cutting edge electronic music combined with drag performance and visuals.

For this masterclass Fraser will guide us through his experience combining these mediums, performing as a queer artist, and developing artistic identity.

Follow Fraser on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vince.vanity/

Professional Practice Masterclass: Akiko Haruna

Monday 28th October
5.30-7pm, Performance Studio

We are extremely happy to have Akiko, one of our alumni, back to give a masteclass on her practice. Akiko has emerged into the sound world from a background in performance. Entering the dance industry at the age of 16, she has worked for mainstream pop artists such as John Newman and AlunaGeorge in videos that have received tens of millions of views. Throughout this time period, she has worked for the Universal Music group, Island Records, the BBC and Sky. Akiko has won a prestigious Nagoya Award of Excellence for her degree show piece titled 記憶 (Memory).

About the masterclass
The masterclass will cover the delicate relationship between self value, creativity and ego. More specifically, the focus will be on the students and how they will approach professional work after DMSA. I will speak about my experiences working freelance in the sound industry and the mental and financial demands that come with it. We will explore options of how they can prepare now, to help them navigate through the transition from university into the industry in the future.

About Aki
Sound and Audiovisual artist Akiko Haruna constructs experimental sound and vision for the moving image. In her projects as a musician, Akiko dances along to a wandering beat. With cutting drums that tear through delicate sound design and flashes of extravagant melody, her dizzying sonic constructions are constantly evolving. Her musical works gained her a place at the 2018 Red Bull Music Academy in Berlin, after which she has been working on multiple projects including her release with Where To Now? Records earlier this year.
https://vimeo.com/akikoharuna

OUTLANDS Presentation

Thursday, October 31st
5.30pm, Performance Studio, GP

We are happy to have Caleb Madden of OUTLANDS to do a presentation to our students on the project’s upcoming events with QUJAKU (JP), IMPATV (UK) and GROUP A – DEAD SLOW AHEAD, and inform them on how they can get involved.

More info about the events and the artists

A rock gig with a difference – Japanese four-piece band Qujaku perform with spectacular newly created visuals and light show created by UK visual artists IMPATV.

Ensō Sone is an original audio-visual collaboration between Japanese psych band Qujaku and UK visual artists IMPATV. Audiences can expect an amalgam of projection methods, visual mapping, lighting and set design, co-joined with a heavy apocalyptic sound resulting in a full-blown psychedelic display to rattle the senses… + Special guests group A open the event with a spectacular new AV set.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

QUJAKU

QUJAKU are a Japanese heavy psychedelic rock band based in Hamamatsu. Their dark and heavy psychedelia filled with rich distortion and feedback creates a unique decadent ambience which is beyond comparison. There is not only a brutality but also an ephemeral beauty behind it. Delicate yet strong, destructive guitar with feedback, repetitive rhythms, and deep, bellowing bass.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Qujaku/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/qujaku_info

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qujaku_jpn/

Website: http://www.qujaku.com/home/

Bandcamp: https://qujaku.bandcamp.com/album/qujaku

IMPATV

IMPATV is a collaborative video and stage production project from UK artists Isadora Darke and Jamie Robinson. Using new digital technologies and live mixing methods combined with costumes and stage design they produce immersive installations, music videos, art and music productions.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/IMPATV/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/impa_tv

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/impatv/

Website: https://impatv.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/impatv

GROUP A – DEAD SLOW AHEAD

group A’s hyper electronic industrial music meets with Berlin based visual artist DEAD SLOW AHEAD for live A/V performances which feature geometry, strobe, and visual explorations.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/groupAband/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/group_a_band/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/group_a
Bandcamp: https://groupa.bandcamp.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/deadslowahead

Tumblr: https://slowmindbending.tumblr.com

Professional Practice Masterclass: AJA

Monday 21st September
5.30-7pm, Performance Studio

We are happy to have AJA with us to deliver a mastericlass-workshop to our students.
AJA has taught across the UK and Europe at such institutions as for Ableton, Huddersfield University, Loughborough University, Confetti Music Institue, Fine Arts Institue (Vienna) and Teatro do Bolhão (Portugal) and have over 10 years experience in performing and writing music. AJA also has experience in teaching LGBTQ+ and female/non-binary focused workshops such as The End of Gender, Sounds Queer? and ITOUS.

About the masterclass/workshop

The workshop will be around how to make field recordings and create a wide range of different sounds and textures by only using simple, built in Ableton Plugins. Participants will learn to build ambient/drone/noise textures, experiment and discovering new sounds as a group through live demonstration. The workshop will also include:

Open discussions about safe spaces
Listening meditation
Ableton Demonstration
Unique Sample Packs created for participants to take away for free
Live soundscape/track created
Archive of costumes from LU LA LOOP and discussions in visuals and illustration and creating your own merch.

Professional Practice Masterclass: Anna Celeste Edmonds

Monday 14th of October, 5.30pm-7pm
Performance Studio, GP

We are excited to have Anna Celeste Edmonds with us to learn more about her site-specific practice and research merging sound, heritage sites and new media technologies. Anna is currently pursuing PhD research supervised by Dr Papadomanolaki, Dr Behrendt and Dr Winter.

About the masterclass

‘Songs of the Sea’ – A masterclass on audio as a tool for exploration and engagement in heritage

This masterclass will involve discussions around audio as a tool for exploring and engaging with heritage; drawing on past work as well as a recent site-specific project titled ‘Songs of the Sea’, located at Brunswick Square in Hove. The processes of assembling different kinds of audio content for an outdoor public engagement setting will be examined, looking specifically at local composer Roger Quilter and her interpretations of his piece ‘The Sea-Bird’.

About Anna

Anna Celeste Edmonds is a sound artist and SEAHA-CDT doctoral student at the University of Brighton, exploring the areas of field recording, composition and voice in a heritage context. Her passion for landscapes and monuments has been present throughout her field and compositional work; researching different perspectives on audio capture and listener engagement. Previous work took the form of site specific and performative projects, with her current research moving towards locative immersive audio in outdoor heritage settings.

Website: https://annacedmonds.com/
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-celeste-edmonds/
Twitter: @annacedmonds