By-Flete
B&W Film / Soundscape (7 Minutes)
Sprituality, Material Matters collective
Williamson Art Gallery
By-Flete (Cheshire dialect: a piece of land cut off by the change of a river’s course) takes the form of a merged filmic diptych, documenting each artist’s journey towards the other from their respective motherlands. Their paths cross the legendary trajectory of Sir Gawain, tracing the twin rivers Dee and Mersey. The work encompasses two practices that use performance and sound to activate ambient and tacit histories of space, exploring the geography of The Green Knight and the conceptual space between. By-Flete interrogates presence and the relational validity of place, visually representing an ephemeral non-place that blends tropes both ancient and futuristic.
Lustrum // By-Flete The Williamson Art Gallery and Musuem, Wirral Borough of Culture 2024
Image credit Benjamin Nuttall
Excerpt from Lustrum (2024), performance film.
Lustrum
Bass Strings, Metal Pick-Up, Machine Heads, Effects Pedals, Wood, Metal Bowls, Water, Hydrophones
Sprituality, Material Matters collective
Williamson Art Gallery
Lustrum exists in dual forms: as an instrument and as a somatic activation. The piece references Gawain’s pentangle-come-cross, with deliberate breaks in the links symbolizing the fragility of the ‘endless knot’. This knot embodies the cyclic and restorative nature of time in relation to place, while the performers occupy the position of mortal bystanders within this sequence of rejuvenation. The performance parallels the sonic activation explored in By-Flete, probing the instrumental and sculptural potentialities of space and sound.