Author: Loula Yorke

ART // TECH // PLAY at Norwich Arts Centre

I’ll be sharing some insights into my work on the evening of Monday 6 September in association with Collusion.

Whether you have a project in mind or just want to know more, are a complete novice or a more experienced user of tech who’d like to expand their skills and share their knowledge, join us – try, share, connect and maybe create exciting new art!

Join us at Norwich Arts Centre for registration and drinks from 6pm. The session starts promptly at 6.30pm and there will be time to explore a range of ideas and technologies, with experienced artists and creative technologists on hand to chat to. Areas covered will include visual projection tools, interactive augmented reality, motion tracking with Kinect, and cool sounds! The session will wrap up at 9.30pm.

ART // TECH // PLAY is led by Collusion, a not for profit arts organisation with a track record of working with artists to projects involving digital technologies . This session is supported by Norwich University of the Arts, Norfolk County Council and Norwich Arts Centre. It is part of an initiative designed to support more artists to engage creatively with digital technologies.

Artists attending:

Will Hurt – Visual Artist and Creative Technologist who will be showcasing his new playable project ARPS

Loula Yorke – Live artist and composer who will be sharing insights into her work with live performance and improvisation on hardware synths.

Karen Eng – Writer and multidisciplinary artist who will be showing how Tagtool can be used to cast live projected visuals.

Jamie Gledhill – Artist working at the intersection of storytelling, audio-visual experimentation and interaction design who will be talking about creating The Multitude, an interactive playable story.

Liam Roberts – Video Artist and Creative Producer who will be demonstrating techniques in using moving image content as part of a live performance or installation.

Laser Music!

One evening in late July 2021 Frazer Merrick – sound artist, composer and inventor (alongside Simon Keep) of the Photon Smasher – came over to TR-33N HQ at Asylum for a visit. Frazer’s invention is a handmade microphone that turns light into sound. He’d given myself and Dave a couple of devices to play with during the Atari Punk Girls workshops, but we decided to take it a bit further and see how the Photon Smasher would react to light emitted from soundwaves containing pitch information from our laser. Here are the surprisingly musical results!

CV Freqs podcast with Eden Grey

Spent an hour today chatting through my set-up with Dr. Chelsea Bruno – music composer, producer, artist and founder of CV Freqs modular synthesis events. Check out her music at http://edengrey.bandcamp.com

PS – my comment about ‘detuning’ has been bothering me 🙄 what i was trying and failing to say is: idc if the oscs are C or F# or some microtune in between, what drives me nuts is losing the harmonic relation ive set up between the two oscs mid-flow/mid-show 😱

See, Make & Do workshop, Sunday 25 July 2021 @ the New Wolsey Theatre

Electronic Music Making (12-16 yrs) – See, Make & Do

I’ll be joining the innovative team from CLIP to get creative with sound and explore how to make electronic music this Sunday 🙂

We’ll begin by experimenting with circuit bending, the art of taking apart old musical toys and playing with the circuits themselves to create new music! Then we’ll combine this with the newest musical apps (using our collection of iPads), to bend, twist and morph sound into exciting electronic music. Zero equipment or previous experience is required.

Workshops are FREE but must be booked in advance as numbers are limited.

All of our workshops and activity will be delivered in line with the latest government guidance on covid-secure working.

BEATRICE NICHOLAS + LOULA YORKE @ Old Jet, 25 July 2021

I’m in the midst of  prepping an IMMENSE live synthesis set for a gig at Old Jet on Bentwaters airbase Sunday 25th July supporting the one and only Beatrice Nichlolas, concert pianist!

Ticket link

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Starting at 7.30pm, I’ll be performing a live solo electronics set using a range of different synthesisers, moving between ambient, drone, and wonky polyrhythmic dance music.
From 8.30pm Beatrice will be playing some of her stunning classical repertoire – Moonlight Sonata, Gershwin Preludes, Clair De Lune, Chopin Waltzes and more. And as a handover between the two sets, Beatrice and I will be collaborating to perform Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie suite together which is SUPER EXCITING!!

The sound system is

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There’s a bar and hot food being served, and in terms of Covid safety, the venue is the best of both worlds – undercover but with one wall entirely open at the side for full ventilation.

GO ON, Treat yourself to some FEEL-GOOD DELUXE PAMPERING by booking your tix now using the eventbrite link. Cheers loves 🥰
Loula x

‘Antechamber Music’ – forthcoming Accidental Records compilation

Excited to be able to announce I have new music coming out on Antechamber Music, an EXCELLENT Accidental Records cassette/digi compilation releasing 30th July 2021 ❤ The track is called YES and is the first piece on the comp. Being quite intimate and dreamy, it’s a bit of new departure for me, and a really good example of this current Yamaha CS-60 drone trip I’m on. Goes without saying that the other tracks on this are ALSO SO GOOD. It’s a fantastic selection by Hugh Jones and team that I’m really proud to be part of. Big thank you to label owner Matthew Herbert.

Oxford Contemporary Music x Upcycled Events – video dropping 8 September 2021

Late winter-time I brought my live synthesis set-up and CV-controlled laser to Oxford Covered Market to throw some sounds and shapes around! This was for a filmed live session with Oxford Contemporary Music in assoc. with Upcycled Sounds. Other artist sessions that day included the ever-lovely Alabaster dePlume and band, and atmospheric new vocalist-producer feeo.

A film of my session will premiere on the OCM YouTube channel on 8 September 2021. In the meantime, here’s my funny face accompanying the day’s coverage in the Oxford Times 🙂

INTERACT LIVE at the Lightbox Gallery, LCB Depot, Leicester – 26 June 2021

I’m playing out on Saturday night at an arts space in Leicester. The gig will be invite-only but streamed via this link for those at home. All I’m taking with me is one very special vintage synthesizer and one reverb pedal. I will be caressing the keys, then taping them down and sweeping every single filter, troubling every setting in every combination imaginable, improvising within the confines of the 8-note polyphony, adding notes and moving bits of tape around as I go. This is part of my new drone / organ output currently going by the name of Our Ears Were Canyons.

Interact Digital Arts says: “Interact Live is back! After a year and a half without any live events, we have teamed up with Ceremony to put on a night of live music and visuals to mark the closing of the 8-bit Exhibition. Due to continuing COVID-19 restrictions, the event is invite-only but will be streamed publically on YouTube.”

Exhibiting at HERE at Art Station, 26 June to 25 July 2021

I’ve just installed a new work Snow Day at the Art Station as part of their forthcoming launch exhibition HERE.

The exhibition is curated by artists Clare Palmier and Jane Watt and celebrates new and recent work by emerging and established contemporary artists with a strong connection to Suffolk and East Anglia – with work that responds to our first floor space within the 1954 post office and also to the idea of HERE.

The exhibition will be open to the public for bookable small group tours and visits on Saturdays and Sundays 12-5pm, or by appointment

Admission is FREE but must be booked. BOOK TICKETS HERE

Twenty-five artists with a diverse range of practices that reflect contemporary engagement with materials, process and ideas will install work across 5500 sq ft of the previously disused 1950s industrial building. Works include site-specific installation, sound, video, VR, photography, drawing, painting, ceramic, sculpture and performance.

Artists:
SE Barnet, Les Bicknell, Stuart Bowditch, Frances Brennan, William Card, Clip Sound and Music, William Cobbing, Graham Crowley, Mikey Cuddihy, Laurence Edwards, Edgefield Dance Company, Maddie Exton, Emily Godden, Kabir Hussain, Ann-Marie James, Abigail Lane, Anna Mac, Ruth Philo, Clare Palmier, Emily Richardson, Lol Sargent, Srinivas Surti, Jane Watt, Emma Withers, Loula Yorke.

There will be accompanying online audio and visual material available throughout the exhibition.

Supported by East Anglia Art Fund, Arts Council England.

Tracklists for ‘Beyond a Boundary’ –  March and May 2021

I’ve moved to doing shows are every other month 🙂 Less pressure, more fun to be had. Also as of the May 2021 edition, the DJ controller is back in action (been borked for a like year…) SOOO no more music all laid out in some kind of sensible order in a DAW, with my awkward ‘radio host’ persona plastered over the beginning and end… just 100% mayhem … ALL THE FX! ALL THE SPEEDS! ALL THE DECKS! YES! 😍