LEVIATHAN
Live Art Digital | 2015-2017
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LEVIATHAN An eye watches from the unseen depths, An electric call in the darkness. Dragged down through the waves, Into the belly of the beast. OVERVIEW The Leviathan project was developed through a series of collaborations between the principle artists; Joe Fairweather-Hole, Dave Meckin, Keir Williams, and composers, performers and poets. Each iteration of the project responds to the the physcial, social and political context in which it is located. Sites have included an abandoned vault, a wall memorial, and an arctic concert hall built within a giant fish oil tank.
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WORKS ELECTROLARYNX
EYE
Audiograft Festival, Oxford story musuem | 2015 Live Art Digital in collaboration with: Charlie Henry Video: http://keirW.xyz/electrolarynx Leviathan’s Electrolarynx, an interactive multimedia installation. The behemoth’s voice box: activated when gently touched, a generative sound and light scape is created. Sound resinates through the physical structure of the sculpture and walls of the vault itself. This work was commissioned by Oxford Contemporary Music in 2015 Neptun Art/ Science Lab | Melbu, Arctic Circle | 2016 Live Art Digital with: Charlie Henry.and Rhiannon Evans Video: http://keir.xyz/leviathans_eye Residency Catalogue: keir.xyz/arctic_dialogues An eye watches from the arctic depths. This residency enabled our collective to research and work with local populations including fisherman, historians, recently arrived refugees and the near by fish processing plant. We where provided with the space and resources to consider how the Neptun Fish Factory (Museum Nord) and the complexities of its surrounding rural community sit within and represent current geo-political shifts. In this project we asked, how did we get here and where do we go now?
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THE DEEP
Royal Neptun Hall | Melbu, Arctic Circle, 2017 Live Art Digital with: Clara Duran, Rhiannon Evans, Alice Helps, Maja Bugge, Svanur Vilbergsson Video: http://keir.xyz/leviathan_deep Two musicians awash in the seas of time, swallowed by the Leviathan. They now dwell amongst the wreckage of their vessel. They sing to their unwitting captor, their deity, and transcend. The deep, consisted of a week-long audio-visual installation, two live performances of a specially written musical score and a concert developed for delegates of the annual International Arctic Dialogues conference. The main sculptural form was created using recovered timber from the local fishing port. This was then augmented by three interwoven and generative, digital audio-visual systems based on the flocking behaviour of Herring: an addressable LED lighting rig, a spacialised soundscape and projection mapping on the sculpture and walls of the tank. This piece was commissioned by Nordland Academy of Art and Science and Museum Nord with support from the Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway, the British Council and the University of the West of England.
WAVE
Oxford Light Festival, Oxford War Memorial | 2017 Live Art Digital with: Colin Potter, Ocean Networks Canada, Voices Unlimited, and the Pit Rivers Museum. Video: http://keir.xyz/wave_light The very unit of light, the lumen, was measured from a pure white spermaceti candle one candlepower being equivalent to the burning of one hundred and twenty grains of wax per hour...The whale was itself a manufactory, of strange substance and of human fortunes. - Philip Hoare I’m going to follow her. Even if it means oblivion, friends. I’ll welcome it, because it won’t be nothing, we’ll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves. We’ll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze, we’ll be glittering in the Dow under the stars and the moon out there in ht physical world which is our true home and always was. - Phillip Pullman
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PRINCIPLE ARTISTS Dr Keir Williams Joe Fairweatherhole Dr Dave Meckin
www.keirwilliams.com www.fairweatherhole.co.uk www.davemeckin.com
PARTNERS