sound + visual + creative research

Mother Nature B.D.S.M.: a collaboration between Hugo Dalton, Christine Sundt and J.R. Dooley at Bermondsey Project Space, London
26th January - 19th February 2012
Visual artist Hugo Dalton contends that Mother Nature is a Dominatrix, not a benevolent figure, through an exhibition of sculptural  installations and wall drawings based on cave-paintings at Lascaux. Dalton's site-specific drawings at Crisis's Bermondsey Project Space will use imagery associated with Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism to evoke humankind's ancient, complex and increasingly fetishised relationship with Mother Nature – source of shelter, sustenance, pleasure and pain. The accompanying sound-work explores these themes, providing an aural backdrop to the exhibition and dance choreographed by Christine Sundt.

Jonathan Harvey: Madonna of Winter and Spring
The Barbican, London
27th - 29th January 2012
As part of the Barbican's Total Immersion festival, Jonathan Harvey's Madonna of Winter and Spring will be performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the live electronics provided Integra Lab (Jamie Bullock and James Dooley). Included in the live electronics is a Yamaha DX1 emulator developed by the Integra Project. Part of the Integra Project's research outcomes include migrating works created with obsolete technologies to sustainable platforms.

Première of The physical impossibility of love in the mind of the pleasure seeker
27th September - 1st October 2011
Hannah Davey premières this performance installation during Integra Festival 2011, Copenhagen. The work uses five poems by Edward Lucie-Smith. The poems explore lust, eroticism and the pursuit of facile, ephemeral pleasures. The performance is an exploration of how these experiences become memories, colour life and leave an aura of fragmentary bliss in their wake. The live electronics for The physical impossibility... were realised with the Integra Live software.

Hilda Paredes: Revelación
19th September 2011
James Dooley and Tychonas Michailidis of Birmingham Conservatoire's Integra Lab direct the live electronics for French Première of Hilda Paredes Revelación at Théâtre Des Bouffe Du Nord, Paris. The performance of this work – written for ensemble, live electronics and dancers – sees Court-Circuit joined by Ana Luján and Toni Aparisi in a multimedia performance.

Hilda Paredes: Revelación
12th May 2011
James Dooley and Tychonas Michailidis of Birmingham Conservatoire's Integra Lab direct the live electronics for World Première of Hilda Paredes Revelación at Palau de les Arts, Valéncia as part of the 33rd ENSEMS contemporary music festival. The performance of this work – written for ensemble, live electronics and dancers – sees Grup Instrumental de Valéncia joined by Ana Luján and Toni Aparisi in a multimedia performance.

Première of Inscriptions
8th April 2011
Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. Inscriptions uses ten poems of the same name by Edward Lucie-Smith as its foundation. The poems were originally written for a portfolio of prints by the Mexican artist Feliciano Bejar. Through the technique of 'blind printing', Bejar impressed(inscribed) designs into soft white paper. The text explores the many ways in which experience is physically inscribed into life, and how this is not always obviously perceived. A gravestone, a public toilet, a tattoo, a patch of dead grass underneath a stone all have their stories to tell; they all have their memories.

Première of Waiting for Andswaru
7th February 2011
James Dooley and Tychonas Michailidis, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. Waiting for Andswaru draws inspiration from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. An absurd theme is evoked by the piece’s use of anti-development. Rather, events occur that obfuscate the listener’s perception, until, finally, the original ideas re-emerge without reaching any conclusion.

Première of Two Lamentations
15th June 2010
The Icarus Project, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. Two Lamentations for SATB choir uses pitch inflection to create quasi-fugal textures; specific pitch is not indicated. The text is taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Première of for violin and piano
8th March 2010
Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. for violin and piano explores the natural sound decay of a short musical figure. This figure is repeated incessently, but never identically. Finally, an intense musical gesture destroys the mundane system that initially dominated the work's progression.

Première of Evolution is random mutation that is successful in a particular environment
22nd February 2010
Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. Evolution... is an algorithmic composition written in the Max/MSP visual programming language.

Jeté - sound installation
21st - 25th July 2009
Part of the Movement exhibition organised by reHub running concurrently with the 2009 IDRS convention at Birmingham Conservatoire, UK.

Première of The Lily
23rd June 2009
The Icarus Project, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. The Lily is a setting of William Blake's poem of the same title, and was written for The Icarus Project.

Première of Five Settings of Classical Middle Eastern Poems
28th March 2009
Tongue Stuff, Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, London.

All the Night Creatures Sang - sound installation
23rd - 27th March 2009
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. All the Night Creatures Sang is an algorithmic composition that mimics the sounds of a tropical rainforest during nighttime.

Première of Lovesong
26th March 2009
Decibel, Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. Lovesong is a setting of Ted Hughes' poem of the same title.

Première of Sturm und Drang
14th March 2009
Staffordshire Symphony Orchestra, Lichfield Cathedral, UK. Sturm und Drang was the result of an orchestral project between J.R. Dooley and Staffordshire Performing Arts.