For Now Hear This, a series of audio works presented in various public spaces across Middlesbrough, Forma worked with Marcus Coates, Geoff Sample, Zoë Irvine and People Like Us.
Marcus Coates
Marcus Coates' practice encompasses film, audio work, and performance. He has established a reputation for producing fascinating explorations of the humorous and often dark similarities that exist between human and animal life. Expressing a direct concern with our relationship with nature and the symbolic resonance of animals in a contemporary urban environment, Coates' works present amusing, yet unexpectedly profound reflections upon human nature.
Recent presentations of work include solo exhibitions at Baltic, Gateshead, and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2007). His work is currently featured in the exhibition Laughing in a Foreign Language at the Hayward Gallery, London. Coates is also Co–artistic Director of Berwick International Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick–upon–Tweed. He lives and works in London.
Geoff Sample
Sample is an internationally renowned sound recordist and a musician. An acknowledged expert on bird song, he has a particular interest in the ecology of acoustic communication, and is author of several publications on wildlife and sound. Sample runs his own label, Wildsong, on which he releases his bird song and natural soundscape recordings. He has contributed to projects with visual artists and musicians including Harriet McDougall, Clodagh Simonds and Evan Parker.
Zoë Irvine
Irvine's current practice includes sound pieces, broadcasts, participatory projects and publications. Her work ranges from carefully crafted individual pieces for radio and installation, to the creation of conceptual platforms, inviting others to participate. Her works often form playful narrative investigations into the industries and cultures of audio broadcast, inspired by early audio technology, broadcasting history and its historic figures.
Irvine is currently Lecturer in Sound Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee, and is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
People Like Us
For sixteen years Vicki Bennett has been making CDs, radio, and audiovisual multimedia under the name People Like Us. Presented as pre–recorded material and as live performance, Bennett's works animate and recontextualise found footage collages, communicating a witty, dark and often surreal critique of popular culture.
Her work has been shown at, amongst others, Tate Modern, The National Film Theatre, Purcell Room, ICA (all London); Sydney Opera House; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sonar, Barcelona; and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She has also performed radio sessions for BBC's John Peel, Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA, and does a regular radio show on WFMU.
www.peoplelikeus.org
