works with Fionn Duffy (2017-19)

Over a couple of years we worked closely with artist Fionn Duffy, to experiment with the relationship between sound, sculpture and performance.

We first met Fionn while on residency together at Hospitalfield, in Arbroath – during which she generously provided a harpsichord accompaniment(!) to our film The Ladder. Later on, we recorded ourselves singing an album by Ed Sheeran, without having heard it before. Through a residency at Siobhan Davies Studios, we kept testing some of the possibilities around sound, sculpture and the body. Some of this work was presented at an open studios at the end of the residency, and then later on again at a festival in Nottingham.

We’ve not worked together in a little while, but we adore Fionn, and her practice. You can check out her work here. Some of our favourite works we made together are below.

Commission: Dance on the Radio (March 2017).

Residency: at Siobhan Davies Studios (London, July 2018).

Exhibition and performance: UK New Artists, Perfect Furniture and Backlit Gallery (Nottingham, February 2019).

Photo by Sarah Woolf.

Filibuster is a 10-minute single channel video. The scene is the clean and dominating environment of the dance studio. The three artists take turns to fidget and contort before a microphone, as the viewer tracks the anxiety, pleasure and vulnerability surrounding the choice of whether or not to speak. 

Video: First exhibited at Siobhan Davies Studios (London, Aug 2018) as part of an Open Choreography Residency. Also exhibited at Perfect Furniture (Nottingham, Feb, 2019), as part of UKYA City Takeover 2019.

Watch Filibuster online here.

FPR Audio is an a cappella and appropriation band. We create our music through finding whatever album has the highest streaming count of that week, and then attempting to sing along as we listen along to it for the first time. Voices hesitantly commit themselves to the confidence and melodrama of contemporary pop. Audiences begin to recognise fragments of melody and lyrics as the formulaic chorus and versus return each time. As they attempt to keep up, the performer’s attention is visibly pulled between the unknown music, the uncertainty and delight of the audience, and the strangeness of their own contorting voice. 

Albums on Bandcamp: ~ (2018), Staying at Sue’s (2018), and Half Way Where? (2019)

Performance: FPR Audio’s first ‘gig’ was at Backlit Gallery (Nottingham, Feb 2019), as part of UKYA City Takeover 2019.

The Great Fall was a live performance created and designed for the stairwell and lift of Siobhan Davies Studios.

A mute performer falls down a stairwell in slow motion. A second performer follows closely behind, mimicing each of their grunts and yelps, and ambitiously sounding each of their thuds, splats and squeaks. A wireless microphone picks up these sounds, which is then amplified through a battery-operated speaker carried by a third performer who trails behind. The Great Fall is glamorous, cartoonish, virtuosic, compelling, and strange.

Performance: First performed at Siobhan Davies Studios (London, Aug 2018) as part of an Open Choreography Residency.

Photo by Anja Borowicz.