Free Entry to All, including Non-human Beings

Hyperobjects invites you to look at the world from non-human perspectives and rethink our ecological relationships with the planet and beyond.

Public Programme

Exhibition Opening
7/11/19, 6-9pm
With Sonic performance ‘Dissolves’ by Jez riley French, 7pm

Reading Session - Discussion on Timothy Morton’s Hyperobject
21/11/19, 7pm
with Art Research Matters (Ulster Research Salon)
>>Off-site event at Platform Arts, Belfast

Closing Night
5/12/19, 6-9pm
Audio Session, 7pm
‘Artificial Natures’ by Mark Peter Wright
‘2311’ by Saša Spačal
Video Documentation Screening - Exhibition viewed through robot’s eyes

*Date and time subject to change

Exhibition

Showcasing live micro-kingdoms, 3D printed sculptures, installations, video, text, drawings and sound art, Catalyst Arts presents Hyperobjects, an interdisciplinary programme of exhibition and public events with local and international artists and musicians.

Audience will experience sounds of mineral and civil structure fragments dissolving through the actions of acid rain (Jez riley French); live amplified effects of electromagnetic hypersensitivity shared collectively in our modern technology (Mark Peter Wright); sonic properties of plastic, and its wider associations from the everyday to the environmental and political (Matmos); stories told from the perspectives of slime mould, our ancient life companion (Jasmin Märker); speculative world inspired by deep oceanic ecological forms and microbe-centric languages (Baum & Leahy); mesmeric projection of ‘intra-flux’ - a flow of intra-actions in biogeochemical feedback loops perpetuating across scales (Saša Spačal); Lorenz Attractor, butterfly effect visualised in the gallery space (Joey O’Gorman); and the universe clock redefined through a 64-bit computer’s sense of time (Robin Price).

Artist Biographies:

Part of the Ulster Research Salon and initiated by Gerard Carson and Katrina Sheena Smyth, Art Research Matters (ARM) is a monthly reading group in Belfast specifically looking at recent developments in (post)continental philosophy and their significance to contemporary art practice, considering theories within posthuman studies, new materialism: material feminism, actor network theory, process philosophy, object oriented ontology and more.

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Baum & Leahy (Amanda Baum (DK) and Rose Leahy (UK) is an Earth-based symbiotic practice exploring how sustainable futures can be grown in symbiosis between environmental ethics and multispecies aesthetics. They collaborate with scientists, recently with microbiologists, quantum computer scientists and cosmologists to translate intangible phenomena and complex ecological dynamics into sensorial experiences.

Since meeting at the Royal College of Art, Baum & Leahy have exhibited at internationally renowned venues, such as the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, Wellcome Collection, Elephant West (UK), The National Gallery of Denmark, Medical Museion (DK), MU ArtSpace (NL), Prairie (US), and Sonar +D (SPN). In 2018 Baum & Leahy received both the Bio Art & Design Award and the British Library Labs Artistic Award.

https://www.baumleahy.com/

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Jez riley French is an artist from Hull who uses intuitive composition, field recording, improvisation and photography to explore his emotive responses to places and situations. He is preoccupied by the ways in which people listen and has an active interest in issues around distortions of histories within sound cultures. His work often stems from a desire to reveal sounds that would otherwise be unreachable, or that go unnoticed. He makes work from sources such as the electromagnetics of light bulbs or office equipment, the resonance of architectural spaces and structures, and the miniscule sounds of insects feeding.

French was one of the lead artists for The Height of the Reeds’ (Hull UK City of 2017). His work has been performed and exhibited at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Art’s Lick Weekend (UK), The Whitworth, (UK), Paradise Air (Japan), MoT - Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Japan), Artisphere (USA), Harpa (Iceland), Mengi (Iceland), The Wired Lab (Australia), Mullae Art Space (Korea) and for organisations in numerous other countries around the world. His hand-built microphones have been used to record a vast range of sounds, from orchestras at the BBC Proms, to sound elements for films, TV & games such as ‘The Theory of Everything’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Gravity’, 'Chernobyl' etc. They are also used to record sounds for various David Attenborough led series.

https://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/

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Joey O’Gorman is a PhD researcher at the Belfast School of Art who is investigating the hybrid and multi-scaled ecologies in which we are embedded. By exploring multiple perspectives, from personal experience to scientific, political and aesthetic discourses, and employing multiple media, his practice seeks to reflect the complexities of an evolving world. Recent works include: the residency project ‘Eco-evo-devo and the Hypercylces of an Extended Self’ (Platform Arts, Belfast) ; the performative lecture ‘To Imagine what Cares’ for the Imagine: Ideas and Politics festival (Framewerk, Belfast); and MFA degree show installation ‘Mapping Multivalent Ecologies and Undermining the Cage of Anthropocentric Sense’ (Catalyst Arts, Belfast).

https://joeyogorman.wordpress.com/

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Jasmin Märker is an interdisciplinary artist based in Belfast, working at the intersections of bio-art, installation and performance. She frequently collaborates with members of the microbial kingdoms to explore holistic approaches to sustainability, and draws from biopolitical and environmental-philosophical concepts to propose alternative, non-human-centric perspectives. Jasmin received a BA in Fine Art from Ulster University in 2016 and works from Vault Artist Studios in Belfast. Since graduating, she has shown work in exhibitions such as Kills 99,9% of Bacteria at CCA Derry-Londonderry, And There Was Light… at Platform Arts, Belfast, Vibrant Matter, part of the 2019 Belfast Science Festival, and Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm. Since 2017, Jasmin has undertaken various residencies such as Interface Residency - where art meets science; a Professional Development Residency at Leitrim Sculpture Workshops.

https://jasminmarker.eu/

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Matmos is M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel, an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. Marrying the conceptual tactics and noisy textures of object-based musique concrete to a rhythmic matrix rooted in electronic pop music, the two quickly became known for their highly unusual sound sources. These raw materials are manipulated into surprisingly accessible forms, and often supplemented by traditional musical instruments played by them and their large circle of friends and collaborators (Björk, Antony/Anohni, So Percussion, Terry Riley, The Kronos Quartet, David Tibet, the Rachel’s, Lesser, Wobbly, Zeena Parkins, and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra). The result is a model of electronic composition as a relational network that connects sources and outcomes together; information about the process of creation activates the listening experience, providing the listener with entry points into sometimes densely allusive, baroque recordings.

Their latest album, Plastic Anniversary (2019) was derived entirely from a single sound source: plastic. At once hyper-familiar in its omnipresence and deeply inhuman in its measured-in-centuries longevity and endurance, plastic supplies, surrounds and scares. Seemingly negligible, plastic is always ready to hand but also always somewhat suspect, casting toxic shadows onto the everyday. True to form, the band have assembled
a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials:
Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic
human fat.

https://vague-terrain.com/

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Robin Price is a Belfast-based artist-inventor, trans-disciplinary physicist, musician and cat enthusiast. His creative practice began in nightclubs and electronic music while studying theoretical physics. A fork in the road then led him to a PhD in Composition and Creative Practice allowing him to diversify from mathematics into coding and electronics for interactivity and audience participation.

https://robinprice.net/

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Saša Spačal is a postmedia artist based in Ljubljana, working at the intersection of living systems research, contemporary and sound art. Her work focuses primarily on the posthuman condition, where human beings exist and act as one of many elements in the ecosystem and not as sovereigns. Therefore abandoning the Cartesian system of classification and accepting the fact that the field of technology has expanded not only from hardware to software but also to wetware resulting in hybrid phenomena inscribed in mechanical, digital and organic logic.

Her work was exhibited and performed at venues and festivals such as Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Prix Cube Exhibition (FR), Transmediale Festival (DE), Athens Digital Arts Festival (GR), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (RUS), Onassis Cultural Center Athens (GR), Chronos Art Center (CHN), Eyebeam (USA), Cynetart Festival (DE), National Art Museum of China (CHN), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (SI), Kapelica Gallery (SI), Device_art (CRO), Art Laboratory Berlin (DE), Kiblix Festival (SI), Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje (SI), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (SRB), Lisboa Soa Festival (PT), Sonica Festival (SI). She was awarded Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention and nominated for Prix Cube.

https://agapea.si/

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Mark Peter Wright is an artist and researcher based in London, working at the intersection of art, critical theory and education. His practice explores the relationship between humans, animals, environments and their associated technologies of capture: critically and playfully generating debate through installation, performance and writing. His collaborative practice with Helena Hunter is called Matterlurgy and works across art, science and ecology. With Salomé Voegelin he co-convenes Points of Listening, a series of public activities exploring collective listening and soundmaking.

He has exhibited internationally at galleries and institutes including the ICA, Flat Time House, GV Art, IMT Gallery, Platform A, MIMA, Southbank Centre and TATE [UK], CCA [Scotland], Museum of Contemporary Art [Italy], Lydgalleriet [Norway] and New York Public Library [USA]. Performance and public interventions include Apiary Studios, Art Licks, Café Oto, The Showroom, V22 [UK] Trinity House Sq [Ireland], Bòlit Contemporary [Spain] and HIAP [Finland]. Lectures, workshops and papers have been presented at the Critical Media Lab [Switzerland], Harvard University [USA], University of Copenhagen [Denmark], University of Stavanger [Norway], Central St Martins, Goldsmiths University, Parasol Unit, South London Gallery and Yorkshire Sculpture Park [UK]. Recent peer reviewed articles include: Journal of Sonic Studies, Evental Aesthetics, Sensate Journal Harvard, Leonardo Music Journal, Continent Journal and Interference Journal. Anthology contributions and artist publications include: Listening and its not [SARU/Compost & Height], Tasked to Hear [Corbel Stone Press], Bio-critical Incidents [Sonic Terrain] and On Listening [Uniform Books].

https://markpeterwright.net/

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Hyperobjects Exhibition and Programme is supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland. Special thanks to Art Research Matters and Platform Arts for their in-kind support.