(trying and failing to) Listen Carefully – a workshop on nonhuman sensing

Louise Mackenzie (supported by ASCUS Lab Manager, Keira Tucker) will lead a workshop designed to explore our connections with the nonhuman world. Guided by Louise’s artistic practice, participants will have the opportunity to begin growing their own listening devices using biomaterials and engage in experimental listening exercises. The workshop will also discuss the various organisms that comprise the biomaterials, strengthening our understanding of the intricate web of living and nonliving things that surround us.

ASCUS Art & Science

ASCUS Art & Science is a non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing together art, science and beyond in the name of creativity, play, curiosity and experimentation. ASCUS catalyses collaborations across disciplines through project management, facilitates creative projects, public engagement events and provides a publicly accessible science lab and genetic modification facility for curious minds to delve into the techniques of microbiology, microscopy and DNA analysis. ASCUS has facilitated projects at the intersection of art and science by both UK and international artists including Oron Catts, Marta de Menezes, Susan Aldworth, Hannah Imlach and Aurelie Fontan.

Louise Mackenzie is a UK based artist working across installation, sound, sculpture, performance and film. Through process-based and performative practice, she considers the relationship between concept and material, manifesting in works that explore themes of human progress, evolution, production, and waste. Recent work has focused on our inextricable relationship to microbial life, through explorations of sound, language and process in the laboratory and in the wild.

Recent projects and exhibitions have included BE THE SEA, Blue Futures, The Word, 2023 (UK); The Beauty of Early Life, ZKM, 2022 (Germany); Staying in Touch, FACTT Lisbon, 2021 (Portugal); Antibodies, Ars Electronica, 2020 (Austria); Lumiere Durham 10th Anniversary 2019 (UK), Ways of Working, 2019, BALTIC39, Newcastle, (UK); BLACK BOX 2019, Newcastle (UK); Pithos (One Possible Story of our Lively Material), 2019, Edinburgh (UK); Tentacular Resonances, 2018, at Generator, Dundee and Fort Process, Newhaven (UK); Contemporary Connections, 2017, Edinburgh International Science Festival (UK); Photo España 2016, Madrid (Spain); Gravitational Wave Space Station 2016, Shanghai (China) and Abandon Normal Devices 2015, Grizedale (UK). Louise received the New Graduate Award at Synthesis, Manchester Science Festival, 2013 and an honorary mention at the Bio Art & Design Awards, The Netherlands, 2015. Louise holds a PhD in Fine Art from BxNU Institute of Contemporary Art, is a Director of ASCUS Art & Science, Edinburgh and a member of Northumbria University's fine art research group: The Cultural Negotiation of Science.

This event is part of the live programme for life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot a research exhibition collated by Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊.