Publication on Baschet's Voice Leaf in Organised Sounds

My article on Baschet’s ‘Voice Leaf’ (1965) was recently published in Organised Sounds. It was an absolute joy to visit the Structures Sonores Baschet barn near Paris. Many thanks to the Structures Sonores Baschet association and to Sophie Chénet.

‘My article introduces the Voice Leaf, an outsider among Baschet’s numerous sound sculptures because of the use of the performative voice. Conceived in 1965 by French pioneers Bernard and François Baschet, the sculpture for voice consists of a stainless steel sheet folded as a leaf using origami technique. ‘ (Louvel, Organised Sounds, 2025)

‘This article remedies the lack of textual documentation on the Voice Leaf. It sheds light on a little-known work of the Baschet brothers that has been overlooked in the historical and theoretical discourse of music and fine art. It thereby allows us to bring into the light the legacy of this singular sculpture for voice, a voice sculpture, in fact, the only one in the extraordinary palette of Baschet sound sculptures.’ (Louvel, Organised Sounds 2025)

www.cambridge.org/core

Image: Jacques Barsac, Sculptures Sonores Baschet, 1982, performance by Bernard Baschet. Bernard et François Baschet © ADAGP 2024.

Upcoming show: 'Joining Doggerland' at APT Gallery, London (6-16 February)

I am very happy to announce that my audio-visual work ‘doggerLANDscape’ will be part of the upcoming show ‘Joining Doggerland,’ curated by Shannon Best at APT Gallery.

Before Britain was an island, its east coast connected with Europe through the fertile plains of Doggerland. At the end of the last ice age, warming climates plunged Doggerland below sea level; its vast biodiversities and specific histories became distant and obscured, a memory lost to time. Through the care and attention of archaeologists, biologists, artists and writers, this primordial landscape draws ever nearer, connecting us with what was, and what remains. 

The story of Doggerland is at risk of repeating, with climate predictions forecasting that parts of the Fenlands, East Anglia, coastal Britain and low-lying London will be underwater from as early as 2030, expanding significantly with each passing decade (Coastal Risk Screening Tool, Climate Central). In an attempt to grapple with such loss and change, Joining Doggerland unites artists as they contemplate the ongoing dialogue between the land and sea, the human and nonhuman; death, life and deep time. 

Spanning painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, sculpture, video and sound, the selected artworks consider flooding across varying forms, scales, and disciplines, forging entangled relations between the past, present, and future. In their respective practices, the exhibiting artists either wrestle with, reflect upon, or reconcile the shifting dynamics of the material, geological, cultural and personal in the face of environmental and societal loss. Like plants rooting and responding to their environments, they situate themselves in processes of ‘emergence, accretion, creation and growth’ (Martin Clark, On Being Sessile, 2020), holding steady in the face of environmental uncertainty as they think and make in symbiotic connection with the earth.

The exhibiting artists are Sophie Mei Birkin, Simon Carter, Alison Cooke, Adam Hedley, Scott Hunter, Olivia Louvel, Raphaella Pester, Sasha Sátchi, Oliver Ventress, and Jack Wheeler.

The exhibition runs from the 6th to the 16th of February, Thursdays to Sundays from 12 to 5 pm, at APT Gallery, Deptford Creekside. The private view will be held on February 6th from 6 to 8 pm.

Address: APT Gallery, 6 Creekside, London, SE8 4SA.

Publication on Lukas Kühne's Tvísöngur in Divergence Press

My article ‘Lukas Kühne’s Tvísöngur: Sculpture for a Concrete Voice’ has now been published by Divergence Press, Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNem), University of Huddersfield. Thank you to Patrick Valiquet. This is the first output of my research in Seyðisfjörður, Northeast Iceland, thanks to the Henry Moore Foundation research grant. http://divergencepress.net/2024/08/06/lukas-kuhnes-tvisongur-sculpture-for-a-concrete-uncompressed-voice/

Photo: Olivia Louvel

Front cover of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

The edition on Sonic Architectures by Neue Zeitschrift für Musik features on the front cover my picture of Lukas Kühne's Tvísöngur, which I photographed during my artist residency in Seyðisfjörður, Northeast Iceland  

The photo accompanies Kersten Glandien’s article ‘Die Vierte Dimension. Über die Beziehung von Klangkunst und Architektur’. Find out more here https://musikderzeit.de/ausgabe/sonic-architectures/

'doggerLANDscape' presented at Towner Eastbourne

It was very nice to return to Eastbourne for ‘Artist films: Human Outlooks on Precarious Coastal Lands’, a screening matinée curated by performance and media artist Claudia Kappenberg at Towner Cinema.

We presented moving image relating to the coast, performance and the Sussex landscape. 

With films by Claudia Kappenberg and Julieanna Preston, Marcia Teusink, and Amy Cunningham.

I presented my video art doggerLANDscape (2023): a search for the remnants of the submerged forest of Doggerland on the Lincolnshire coast, when the river Thames was connected to the Rhine. We were not always an island.

Thank you to Emily Medd.

A University of Brighton series of events to coincide with Emma Stibbon's 'Melting Ice | Rising Tides' exhibition at Towner Eastbourne.

LOL: Ivor Novello Award Best Sound Art

Last night, I was awarded with LOL the Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art at The Ivors Classical Awards!

The jury remarked: “LOL is a provocative, disruptive and impactful work, deftly constructed with humour”.  

The award was presented by interdisciplinary composer and audio visual artist Esmeralda Conde Ruiz.

I am very grateful to the jury, to the Ivors Academy, to Kersten Glandien, artistic director of Sound Art Brighton, and to the Auxiliary who commissioned the work (directors Anna Byrne, Kyp Kyprianou, and Liam Slevin).

LOL is a site-specific sonic intervention delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network, reflecting the current state of political affairs in Britain. On dedicated sites in the centre of town, passers-by heard political slogans, and news headlines read by the AI voice ‘Kate’.

LOL was broadcast at specific times over four days 22-25 September 2022.

You can watch an excerpt of LOL on Vimeo

THANK YOU. MERCI.

Photography credit Hogan Media / Shutterstock

Ivor Novello Award nomination for Best Sound Art

I have been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art with 'LOL'.

Press release 18 October 2023:

The fifth Middlesbrough Art Weekender (2022) titled power POWER endeavoured to question how official power is wielded and how unofficial power is expressed.

LOL is a site-specific sonic intervention delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network, reflecting the current state of political affairs in Britain. On dedicated sites in the centre of town, passers-by heard political slogans, and news headlines read by the AI voice ‘Kate’.

LOL was composed by Olivia Louvel, and produced in collaboration with Kersten Glandien, artistic director of Sound Art Brighton, an independent initiative that celebrates the presence of sound art in Brighton.

The three-part collage includes a field recording ‘Climate Justice’ by Swiss artist Stefano Christen.

Commissioned by The Auxiliary, 2022. Thank you to The Auxiliary directors Anna Byrne, Kyp Kyprianou, and Liam Slevin. Thank you to the Middlesbrough surveillance team for their participation.

The Ivors Classical Awards, judged and presented by The Ivors Academy, will take place on 14th November at the BFI/Southbank.

LOL, photographed by Rachel Deakin

'LOL' at Middlesbrough Art Weekender from Sound Art Brighton on Vimeo.

'Doggerland Channels’ at Middlesbrough Art Week

I have reinstalled the work!

Doggerland Channels is retracing the rivers that used to connect us to the continent. When the river Thames flowed into the Rhine. Read more here.

Until 7th of October at Centre Square, Albert Road, Middlesbrough TS1 2QJ. The programme https://middlesbroughartweek.com/programme

A Sound Art Brighton production

Artist in front of her installation Doggerland Channels, Middlesbrough Art Week, 2023, photography Yuhao Chen.

Doggerland Channels, Middlesbrough Art Week, 2023, photography Yuhao Chen.