AUDIOGRAFT Sonic Art Research Unit & Oxford Contemporary Music

Above Image: Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.

Audiograft 2023, curated by Patrick Farmer and Paul Whitty, the Sonic Art Research Unit, Oxford Brookes University, with the help of Oxford Contemporary Music.

Sonic-sculptures installation consisting of stone, plant, and machine. Reeds, fipples and twine. 

For this audiograft residency and performance at OVADA, Rita will bring her unique body of sculptural objects to work alongside Anna Jane Houghton, Sharon Phelan, Catherine Ross and Beth Shearsby. Live sound engineering by Jon Samsworth.

Within the acoustics of the OVADA warehouse, this new group explored the idea of using the sculptures as tools to understand and interact with space, seeking to blur individual boundaries by bringing themselves into a mode of both active and collective inquiry.

The artists will spend two days in residency before the performance, experimenting with vibrating strings; piercing through wavering surfaces; threading reel to reel tape through resistant forms; and layering pre-recorded sounds with the objects to create and sustain a dynamic interplay in between acoustic bodies.

Link to BBC Sounds Interview with Alex West, 30th September, OVADA / Audiograft 2023

Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Image of sonic sculpture. Photo by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Still from footage by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Image of rehearsal. Photo by Tom Thistlethwaite.
Audiograft Festival 2023, at Ovada Gallery. Image of sonic sculpture. Photo by Tom Thistlethwaite.