Since 1998, the London Improvisers Orchestra has been dedicated to the arts of conducted improvisation, or ‘Conduction’, and free improvisation.
The orchestra was formed from the ashes of the 1997 touring group of American improviser Butch Morris, the pioneering inventor of Conduction. Since its birth, the group has had hundreds of members pass through its ranks, including Evan Parker, Pat Thomas, Byron Wallen, John Edwards, Lol Coxhil, Caroline Kraabel, and Mark Sanders. To this day, the group is led by founding member Steve Beresford, an icon of the UK’s improvisation movement.
For its one-off sound exhibition at DIVFUSE, the orchestra will be presenting unreleased live recordings, accompanied by photos, from throughout its history.
£8 | 10 places each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for ticketing
Both sessions will be delivered in similar contents, ie they are not Part 1 and Part 2.
After having run four rounds of Open Calls DIVFUSE Sound Archive looking for works that are based on field recordings, Project DIVFUSE is pleased to present a sound exhibition by Jez riley French, an artist who builds microphones for capturing sound in different environments. Jez will also be giving two sessions of talks on recording devices and techniques involved based on his extensive experience.
Sound exhibition
soil horizons (2023) spit soil beds
Traces of durational listening to the inner sounds of plants and to soil horizons; on-going research into transpiration, root systems, cavitation, vibrations in soil systems, situated connections between ground dwelling species, public and private land borders.
Recorded with adapted JrF contact microphones and hydrophones.
24 March 2023 Friday 6-8:30pm. DJ from 6-7:30pm. Live by artist from 7:30pm.
25 March Saturday 6-8:30pm. DJ from 6-7:30pm. Live by artist from 7:30pm.
26 March Sunday 3-7pm. DJ from 3-5pm. Live by artist at 5 AND 6pm.
Free entry. . [[Photosensitive Warning]]
Merkaba Macabre presents a new audiovisual project that explores colour to sound synthesis for a three-day residency at Project DIVFUSE. The project maps the perceived colour spectrum to the audible frequency spectrum, allowing each color tone to pair with a unique sound tone. These ‘binary tones’ are performed live as quantized patterns across three digital projectors and a 3.1 sound system. Building upon the artist’s previous research in analogue light-based composition, Merkaba Macabre investigates this field in a purely digital process resulting in a triptych audiovisual expanse.
Ticket: £10. 8 seats only (Sold out now!). To buy tickets, please email divfuse@gmail.com for payment details.
Project DIVFUSE is pleased to present our third event under our curatorial series Sound Meta, which celebrates sound making through performances or workshops. Join us for a 2023 version of this unique event by Robin The Fog where tape loops will take over the entire venue – and the audience will be expected to help hold it all together!
Robin The Fog is a Cumbrian sound artist and audio producer based in London. He is the founding member of Howlround, a project that creates recordings and performances entirely by manipulating sounds on a quartet of vintage reel to reel tape recorders, with all additional effects strictly forbidden – no samples, no synths, no pedals, no plug-ins. Howlround’s eighth studio album was released in 2022.
Each session is about 30 minutes. 8 places each session. Please email divfuse@gmail.com for a space.
Artist will be present during the event. Free entry
‘In the late 1980s I was living on Clarence Road a stone’s throw from DIVFUSE Gallery.
Looking out through the windows of my upstairs flat I made a ten-minute film, Views from Home.
Shot in time-lapse, the film also recorded sunlight passing through the empty rooms while I was out at work. Sax player Alan Wilkinson lived and practised in the flat below, and he unknowingly provided much of the soundtrack.
For this event, a live video of the street plays alongside an adapted version of the original film.
Note: Views from Home was filmed in super 8mm and completed on video in 2005.’
16 December Friday 6:30-8pm [UPDATED from 9 December]
£5 | 12 places only | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets
Workshops :
10 December Saturday 2-4pm PART ONE
17 December Saturday 2-4pm PART TWO
£12 each part or £20 for attending both parts | 6 places only | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for ticketing information
Note : Participants are recommended to attend both parts as PART TWO will be building on the materials delivered in PART ONE. BYO instruments.
Two workshops and a lecture by Caroline Kraabel
Exploring her own practice, along with a wider view of improvisation and identity: even the world of freely improvised music can be experienced as an enclave that excludes, despite the perceived association of improvisation with limitlessness and freedom.
How do people who improvise feel and think DIFFERENTLY from each other on the subject? How do we avoid or alter any dominance of particular groups over the theory or practice of improvisation? Does the experimental nature of improvisation make it easier for members of élites to shine in the field, because they have more pre-existing socio-cultural capital? Or, does improvisation come more easily for outsiders who are already primed to find alternative paths? How are improvisers affected by their musical and cultural histories? How does a group, maybe a large group, of improvisers negotiate space and time, noise and silence in a musical and just way?
For improvisers who have experienced forms of oppression in music making and/or life, is the aim when making music merely to recapitulate existing power structures, but try to place themselves at the top? Or to create new and fairer structures?
References: Gittin’ To Know Y’all: Improvised Music, Interculturalism, and the Racial Imagination, by George E. Lewis, Columbia University
