Congo, Copper and (Atari Atari Atari Punk Punk Punk) Console Console Console
latest from Max Dovey
Hi!
Hope your doing well and feeling the days getting a bit lighter and longer. This winter newsletter got massively delayed due to well needed hibernation and in January I whittled away my time writing funding proposals while confronting the annual anxiety and guilt around doing something wrong on my tax return so here we are! so far so good, no funding but also no fines either!
Copper workshop at CCA
Towards the end of last year I was really fortunate to be invited to give a couple of workshops at Center for Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths in New Cross, South London. The workshops were aimed at secondary school A-level art students based in Lewisham and were produced with the educational and outreach team at CCA and Linked Spheres.
The workshops complimented the exhibition by Sammy Balogi that explored the various forms of colonialism and ecological violence that have taken place in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two moving image works documented colonised territories, from now abandoned scientific centres created by European settlers to study the botany of the rainforest, to Tales of the Copper Cross Garden (2017) that bridges the industrial production of copper smelting with aims of anglo-missionaries to convert Congolese youth to catholic church.
With the support of the educational team at The Geology Society I was able to hand out some different specimens of copper that students drew using different embodied techniques (such as automatic drawing and blind contour drawing) before creating conductive frames for the drawings using adhesive copper tape, LEDS and lithium cell batteries.
It was great to see how different applied tactile approaches towards the physicality of copper could help contextualise the relation between minerals and electronics and I discovered how different creative approaches can help foster some poetic gestures and intimate encounters with some of the minerals deemed critical in the transition to renewable energy.
Thanks to Linked Spheres for the initial invitation, CCA Goldsmiths for hosting, the secondary schools for participating and The British Geology Society for trusting me with their precious minerals! For anyone keen to see more (or give the activities a go) Ive made the slides from the workshop available here.
What I’m Listening to
Staying with the Copper, I was gifted this album ‘Sequence Ceramics’ by Copper Sounds a pair of Bristol based experimental sound artists who develop minimalist modulated rhythms with ceramics. The music is released as a unique ceramic vessel, each one with a download code to the digital album, so you can sit and drum along while you listen to this ceramic beats. If your in Bristol you can see them this month (Thursday 27th Feb) at this brilliant looking night ‘Kinetic Sounds’ at Strange brew featuring aforementioned Copper Sounds, the excellent sound artist Kathy Hinde and many many others.
Console Console Console
Moving with approaches to DIY sound synthesis on my birthday I treated myself with a visit to ‘This museum is (not) obsolete’ an absolute treasure trove of analogue experimental media housed in an ex-telephone exchange in Ramsgate. The place is full of humming machines preserving forgotten computing and media history as well as wonderful and weird experiments in sound synthesis from world record breaking drone synth to the slightly annoying Furby organ.
I picked up a PCB kit for building a modular synth designed by Sam Battle who maintains the gear, runs the museum and publishes music under the name Look Mum No Computer. (thanks Alfred Valley for the recommendation back in 2022!). Have a little listen to the glitchyness of the Atari Atari Atari Punk Punk Punk Console Console Console below
As well as going and playing with all the wonderful and weird electronics you can also book in sessions to go and make music and record sounds to continue the spirit of open access culture to electronics.
What I'm reading…
My dad (also known as my dad) is a wonderfully generous, kind, loving and exceedingly clever man who since retiring from the world of academia has time to entertain his gift of the gab with writing poems and performing then out loud in bars on weeknights. He has a new book of 17 poems that talk to this, titled ‘Actuarial Adjustments’, the term used to financially account for the unexpected manoeuvres as you drift towards the end of life, and you can top up his pension payout by ordering a copy for just £4! + £2.25 P&P get a copy here and give him a follow for some poetic interruptions to your feed.
Quantum Listening by Pauline Oliveros has also resonated with me recently and some of us at Motherhouse Studios have begun to explore listening and walking as a space for collective creative exploration. We recently went listening in Dulwich woods and will be going on another walking / listening outing in the coming weeks with the intention to present outcomes from the walks at an exhibition at the studio in the summer.
What i'm looking forward to…
Chemist Gallery is brilliant AND local and always puts on good exhibitions, the last one by Daniel Shanken ‘The Pits’ was a grotesque visual exploration of when A.I begins to eat itself (known as ‘model collapse’). This Friday they have Phillip Speakman who will be doing a role play performance in a magical / haunting semi-fictional narrative work. This is part of an ongoing series titled ‘conversations with A.I’ curated by Rebecca Edwards.
I’ve signed up to a bunch of these free online workshops organised by Future Everything featuring artists, theorists and activists I really admire such as Angela Chan, Dani Admiss and Marry Magic.
Thankyou for reading - sending a shiny thing to you and your loved ones.
MX