Exhibition: Engaging with Disengagement in Digital Immersive Experiences
Project Somnolence is a portable lab for encouraging curiosity, reflection and speculative approaches to sleep in the past, present and future. Project Somnolence has engaged public interest in sleep through engagement events and workshops at The Dream Machine, Out of the Blue, Glasgow Science Festival, Civic House, the University of Glasgow and other places. Situating sleep within fields of inquiry which include health & wellbeing, sustainability, environment, space and place, the project combines creative-critical methods to improve attitudes towards sleep and put issues of rest, recovery and somnolence (a desire for sleep) at the forefront of academic discussion. With IASH fellow Adriana Alcaraz, they will be hosting a symposium workshop, Insights on sleep, rest, and dream experiences: perspectives from the arts and humanities, at the University of Edinburgh on 22nd May.
https://projectsomnolence.com/
MONOLITH TO THE BUZZED: A monument in honour of those who refuse to slow down, opt-out or disengage. A message of consolation to the perennially frazzled, spread-thin, burnt-out, spent and shattered denizens of the data world.
Digitally planted in the Advanced Research Centre at Glasgow University, a towering, congealed slop-heap of virtual detritus coalesces, threatening to eat the ambivalent and topple and squish the uncertain.
A work of dark digital expressionism, Monolith To The Buzzed is presented as a three-dimensional, augmented reality experience accessible through VR headsets and mobile phone devices. The work is a geolocated proposition, purpose-built for the ARC from photogrammetrically captured objects crashed together and piled high.
<<REMAIN VIGILANT>>
(Jack Wrigley) I am a practice-based researcher in The University of Glasgow’s theatre studies department. My artistic practice is grounded in technical and synthetic image-making, theatre and, recently, game design. My current work and research explores ownership and the trespass of militarised Scottish landscapes through gaming technologies and virtual subversion. I was co-founder of the anarchic Glasgow-based collective 85A, and I have worked as a professional artist with companies and organisations including Warp Records, The National Theatre of Scotland, Cirque Bijous, Scottish Dance Theatre, Sonar Barcelona, Fusion Festival, Untitled Projects, Bassline Circus and Cirkus Cirkor. I am a sometimes laser programmer and have made shows for Aphex Twin at Tate Modern, Florian Hecker, Sega Bodega, Lorenzo Senni, and The Modern Institute. I operate under the pseudonym Jack Lander.
- jacklander.net
- 85a.org.uk
963 Words on Deceleration is a text and image piece that looks at deceleration as a condition, something that you have to give into.
Carl Lavery teaches Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. He has written numerous books and articles about theatre and performance and is interested in creative and critical approaches to landscape. He has exhibited work in galleries, museums and film festivals.
from 'Vectors of Novelty: co-composing selves in the Terminal Present'
Iain Findlay-Walsh and Tristan Partridge present a short, composite video drawn from their forthcoming collaborative piece, “Vectors of Novelty: Co-Composing Selves in the Terminal Present” (openwork journal). This contribution combines a mix of co-composed media and co-authored texts and is part of an ongoing collaborative project examining the porous boundaries and theoretical connections that link conceptions of self, temporality, and composition.
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Maria Sledmere’s work addresses issues of ecology, energy, gender, dreams and digital aesthetics. Recent books include the experimental monograph Midsummer Song (Hypercritique) (Tenement Press, 2024) and poetry collection, Cinders (Krupskaya, 2024). Her first book, The Luna Erratum (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2021), was shortlisted for the Saltire Society’s Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award 2022. Languishing, cute, a book of Celtic sci-fi poetry co-written with Ian Macartney, is forthcoming in spring 2025 and a novella, The Indigo Hours, in autumn. Maria is director of post-internet publisher SPAM Press, one half of the performance duo Project Somnolence and a Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. https://mariasledmere.com/
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Kevin Leomo is a curator and practitioner of experimental music based in Glasgow. He is interested in silence, fragility, quietude, perception, and liminality. He works across text-based scores, non-standard notation, improvisation, field recording, critical listening practices, and installation. Kevin’s practice has been informed by an engagement with artists associated with Wandelweiser. He co-curates the Creatives of Colour Festival as well as Thinking Culture and Music in the University. Kevin directs the experimental music collective Sound Thought, is one half of Project Somnolence, and is the Community and Engagement Manager for the College of Arts & Humanities at the University of Glasgow.