We're thrilled to announce thatVegetal Empathy, an installation and performance by sound artist Pheobe riley Law will be presented at Green Lens Studios from March 19th
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VEGETAL EMPATHY is a durational installation with live elements by sound artist Pheobe Riley Law. The work presents a speculative simulation of the garden, exploring our entanglement with more than human entities through data, micro listening and acts of tending.
Recontextualising and collaborating with the microscopic realities of soil systems, plants, moss species and plant data, the installation engages ideas of radical care and ecological reciprocity. It proposes the garden as a site of co performance, where human and vegetal agencies intersect.
The piece includes filmed projections of plants frozen in water, the movement of aquatic insects and the artist’s hand, flexible and transforming. These gestures reflect on extraction, material transformation and the manipulation of plant DNA. The sonic environment incorporates voice, live automation mimicry and textural rhythmic material alongside live soil listening. Plants are hydrated and amplified through hydrophones and microphones, allowing audiences to hear the actual acoustic activity of plant and root systems rather than their digital sonification.
Through human and non human machine performers, the garden space becomes a collaborative choir.
On the opening night, Pheobe Riley Law will activate the installation through a standalone concert performance.
To request the full press release, please contact info@greenlenstudios.comAbout the Artist
Pheobe riley Law is an installation artist working across sound, performance, sculpture, photography, and moving image. She creates dialogues between bodies, borders, and devices to reveal new forms of relation. She is particularly interested in non-human actors, inanimate objects, and how human activity is shaped by systems of boundary. creation.
Through playful inversions, she highlights the object-hood of humanity and the agency of the "inanimate". Her latest performance installation, Vegetal Empathy, is a speculative simulation of the garden, exploring our entanglement with more-than- human entities through data, micro-listening and acts of tending.
Ongoing and previous projects include Vegetal Empathy (supported by the Sound Generator award 2024-25); curator for Let Us Cook (Concertgebouw Brugge); installation for vast, slender boundaries (Rainy Days Festival, Luxembourg); residency with Simultan/Semi-Silent/Sonic Narratives (Timiçoara). The Sound of Food, Kupfer Project (London); cam.bi.um (flora) with Gaia Blandina, Hull Jazz Festival; dep.can.gre.sou with Abbas Zahedi at RCA, Moss Listening (Sonic Acts). Residency at Fabrica; installations at Humber Street Gallery; Spikersuppa Gallery (Oslo); and Cove Park (Scotland). She has shown work at The Baltic, Hatton Gallery, in Denmark, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Japan. Pheobe has performed BBC Radio 3, sour bay at Matsudo Science Art Festival, Fort Process, Ftarri, and Café Oto.
On Sunday 22nd of March Pheobe will be delivering workshop on her creative process. This workshop invites participants into a shared listening experience that goes beyond everyday hearing. Together, we’ll explore the surrounding environment by tuning into more-than-human micro-worlds like plant matter, the vibrations of machines sounds and also the wider city soundscape.
Through group listening, participants will learn how to listen more deeply. They will be prompted to tune into sounds that often go unnoticed. This workshop is especially welcoming to those who are curious about sound but may not have explored this realm before, while still offering depth for more experienced listeners.
All levels are welcome.
Needed:
Bring headphones with mini jack cable
Optional:
Recorder device ( Zoom, Tascam or mobile phone)
Sunday 22nd of March
Start: 12 noon
To book follow this link