Co-Director Call Out Spring 2020

Catalyst Arts welcomes expressions of interest applications for new Co-Directors

Catalyst Arts has been one of the most important and innovative artist-led spaces for contemporary art in Belfast since it began in 1993. The driving force behind the organisation has always been the determined and enthusiastic committee of directors who have worked over the years to ensure the gallery remains at the forefront of the visual art scene in Northern Ireland – improving, producing and promoting art and culture and the advancement of education and training in the arts.

Catalyst Arts directorship programme has a local and international reputation of providing a unique training ground for artistic, curatorial and cultural production. Applicants who are seeking to advance their experience within an artist-led model of gallery programming and operations are encouraged, with successful candidates gaining valuable skills in installation, production, funding applications, commissioning, outreach, education, archiving and administration work. This is an exciting opportunity to join Catalyst Arts at the beginning of a new chapter as one of Northern Ireland’s leading contemporary art organisations.

Although previous experience in all areas is not essential, interested candidates are encouraged to review and consider the director criteria when making their applications.

The role of co-director is a voluntary position carried out over two years, on a rolling basis.

For more information on the role at Catalyst follow link Catalyst Arts Job Description  application forms can be found at Catalyst Arts Director Application Form

Applications should be submitted by email to:

catalystarts@gmail.com

Deadline for our next review period is: 23:59 Saturday February 1st 2020

If successful, candidates will be notified by Wednesday February 14th and interviews held on  Thursday 20th February

Successful candidates would begin their induction in the Spring of 2020.

Keep-Dry | 9-18 January 2020

'Keep-Dry' is a group exhibition of the current MFA 2nd year students from Ulster University.

Artists include: Chloe Austin, Dominic McKeown, Gemma Kirkpatrick, Jennifer Alexander, John Connolly, Nollaig Molloy, Rosemary McMillen, Saffron Monks-Smith, Sarah Smith, Sinead O’ Neill-Nicholl, Stephanie Tanney, Valanti Athanasiou, Vasiliki Stasinaki.

'Keep-Dry' opens on Thursday 9 January, as part of the first Belfast Late Night Art 2020 (6-9pm)

Member of The Month: Last of 2019

We wish all of our amazing Member's from 2019 a very Happy and prosperous New Year in 2020! In the spirit of that, our Newest Member of the Month and the last of the year is Andrea Piras Pinna.

Pinna is an Italian visual artist based in Dublin, Ireland. He holds a Master's degree in Net Art and digital culture from the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara (Italy) and a Bachelor's degree in Multimedia Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino (Italy).

Andrea's practice consists on the use of Computer generated environment and scenes as a means to explore the ways in which digital forms of representation can create newversions of reality and inform us.

His video works often translate in site specific installations, looking for a dialogue between simulation, digital image and space.

Website: www.andreapiraspinna.it

New Year, New Members! Don't forget you can become a member at www.patreon.com/catalystarts

Hyperobjects | 7 November - 5 December 2019

Hyperobjects
7/11/19 - 5/12/19
Exhibition and Special Events
Art Research Matters | Baum & Leahy | Jez riley French | Joey O’Gorman | Jasmin Märker | Matmos | Robin Price | Saša Spačal | Mark Peter Wright  

Free Entry to All, including Non-human Beings

Hyperobjects invites you to look at the world from non-human perspectives and rethink our ecological relationships with the planet and beyond.

Public Programme

Exhibition Opening
7/11/19, 6-9pm
With Sonic performance ‘Dissolves’ by Jez riley French, 7pm

Reading Session - Discussion on Timothy Morton’s Hyperobject
21/11/19, 7pm
with Art Research Matters (Ulster Research Salon)
>>Off-site event at Platform Arts, Belfast

Closing Night
5/12/19, 6-9pm
Audio Session, 7pm
‘Artificial Natures’ by Mark Peter Wright
‘2311’ by Saša Spačal
Video Documentation Screening - Exhibition viewed through robot’s eyes

*Date and time subject to change

Exhibition

Showcasing live micro-kingdoms, 3D printed sculptures, installations, video, text, drawings and sound art, Catalyst Arts presents Hyperobjects, an interdisciplinary programme of exhibition and public events with local and international artists and musicians.

Audience will experience sounds of mineral and civil structure fragments dissolving through the actions of acid rain (Jez riley French); live amplified effects of electromagnetic hypersensitivity shared collectively in our modern technology (Mark Peter Wright); sonic properties of plastic, and its wider associations from the everyday to the environmental and political (Matmos); stories told from the perspectives of slime mould, our ancient life companion (Jasmin Märker); speculative world inspired by deep oceanic ecological forms and microbe-centric languages (Baum & Leahy); mesmeric projection of ‘intra-flux’ - a flow of intra-actions in biogeochemical feedback loops perpetuating across scales (Saša Spačal); Lorenz Attractor, butterfly effect visualised in the gallery space (Joey O’Gorman); and the universe clock redefined through a 64-bit computer’s sense of time (Robin Price).

Artist Biographies:

Part of the Ulster Research Salon and initiated by Gerard Carson and Katrina Sheena Smyth, Art Research Matters (ARM) is a monthly reading group in Belfast specifically looking at recent developments in (post)continental philosophy and their significance to contemporary art practice, considering theories within posthuman studies, new materialism: material feminism, actor network theory, process philosophy, object oriented ontology and more.

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Baum & Leahy (Amanda Baum (DK) and Rose Leahy (UK) is an Earth-based symbiotic practice exploring how sustainable futures can be grown in symbiosis between environmental ethics and multispecies aesthetics. They collaborate with scientists, recently with microbiologists, quantum computer scientists and cosmologists to translate intangible phenomena and complex ecological dynamics into sensorial experiences.

Since meeting at the Royal College of Art, Baum & Leahy have exhibited at internationally renowned venues, such as the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, Wellcome Collection, Elephant West (UK), The National Gallery of Denmark, Medical Museion (DK), MU ArtSpace (NL), Prairie (US), and Sonar +D (SPN). In 2018 Baum & Leahy received both the Bio Art & Design Award and the British Library Labs Artistic Award.

https://www.baumleahy.com/

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Jez riley French is an artist from Hull who uses intuitive composition, field recording, improvisation and photography to explore his emotive responses to places and situations. He is preoccupied by the ways in which people listen and has an active interest in issues around distortions of histories within sound cultures. His work often stems from a desire to reveal sounds that would otherwise be unreachable, or that go unnoticed. He makes work from sources such as the electromagnetics of light bulbs or office equipment, the resonance of architectural spaces and structures, and the miniscule sounds of insects feeding.

French was one of the lead artists for The Height of the Reeds’ (Hull UK City of 2017). His work has been performed and exhibited at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Art’s Lick Weekend (UK), The Whitworth, (UK), Paradise Air (Japan), MoT - Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Japan), Artisphere (USA), Harpa (Iceland), Mengi (Iceland), The Wired Lab (Australia), Mullae Art Space (Korea) and for organisations in numerous other countries around the world. His hand-built microphones have been used to record a vast range of sounds, from orchestras at the BBC Proms, to sound elements for films, TV & games such as ‘The Theory of Everything’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Gravity’, 'Chernobyl' etc. They are also used to record sounds for various David Attenborough led series.

https://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/

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Joey O’Gorman is a PhD researcher at the Belfast School of Art who is investigating the hybrid and multi-scaled ecologies in which we are embedded. By exploring multiple perspectives, from personal experience to scientific, political and aesthetic discourses, and employing multiple media, his practice seeks to reflect the complexities of an evolving world. Recent works include: the residency project ‘Eco-evo-devo and the Hypercylces of an Extended Self’ (Platform Arts, Belfast) ; the performative lecture ‘To Imagine what Cares’ for the Imagine: Ideas and Politics festival (Framewerk, Belfast); and MFA degree show installation ‘Mapping Multivalent Ecologies and Undermining the Cage of Anthropocentric Sense’ (Catalyst Arts, Belfast).

https://joeyogorman.wordpress.com/

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Jasmin Märker is an interdisciplinary artist based in Belfast, working at the intersections of bio-art, installation and performance. She frequently collaborates with members of the microbial kingdoms to explore holistic approaches to sustainability, and draws from biopolitical and environmental-philosophical concepts to propose alternative, non-human-centric perspectives. Jasmin received a BA in Fine Art from Ulster University in 2016 and works from Vault Artist Studios in Belfast. Since graduating, she has shown work in exhibitions such as Kills 99,9% of Bacteria at CCA Derry-Londonderry, And There Was Light… at Platform Arts, Belfast, Vibrant Matter, part of the 2019 Belfast Science Festival, and Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm. Since 2017, Jasmin has undertaken various residencies such as Interface Residency - where art meets science; a Professional Development Residency at Leitrim Sculpture Workshops.

https://jasminmarker.eu/

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Matmos is M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel, an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. Marrying the conceptual tactics and noisy textures of object-based musique concrete to a rhythmic matrix rooted in electronic pop music, the two quickly became known for their highly unusual sound sources. These raw materials are manipulated into surprisingly accessible forms, and often supplemented by traditional musical instruments played by them and their large circle of friends and collaborators (Björk, Antony/Anohni, So Percussion, Terry Riley, The Kronos Quartet, David Tibet, the Rachel’s, Lesser, Wobbly, Zeena Parkins, and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra). The result is a model of electronic composition as a relational network that connects sources and outcomes together; information about the process of creation activates the listening experience, providing the listener with entry points into sometimes densely allusive, baroque recordings.

Their latest album, Plastic Anniversary (2019) was derived entirely from a single sound source: plastic. At  once  hyper-familiar  in  its  omnipresence  and deeply inhuman in its measured-in-centuries longevity and endurance, plastic supplies, surrounds and scares. Seemingly negligible, plastic is always ready to hand but also always somewhat suspect, casting toxic shadows onto the everyday. True to form, the band have assembled
a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials: 
Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic 
human fat.

https://vague-terrain.com/

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Robin Price is a Belfast-based artist-inventor, trans-disciplinary physicist, musician and cat enthusiast. His creative practice began in nightclubs and electronic music while studying theoretical physics. A fork in the road then led him to a PhD in Composition and Creative Practice allowing him to diversify from mathematics into coding and electronics for interactivity and audience participation.

https://robinprice.net/

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Saša Spačal is a postmedia artist based in Ljubljana, working at the intersection of living systems research, contemporary and sound art. Her work focuses primarily on the posthuman condition, where human beings exist and act as one of many elements in the ecosystem and not as sovereigns. Therefore abandoning the Cartesian system of classification and accepting the fact that the field of technology has expanded not only from hardware to software but also to wetware resulting in hybrid phenomena inscribed in mechanical, digital and organic logic.

Her work was exhibited and performed at venues and festivals such as Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Prix Cube Exhibition (FR), Transmediale Festival (DE), Athens Digital Arts Festival (GR), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (RUS), Onassis Cultural Center Athens (GR), Chronos Art Center (CHN), Eyebeam (USA), Cynetart Festival (DE), National Art Museum of China (CHN), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (SI), Kapelica Gallery (SI), Device_art (CRO), Art Laboratory Berlin (DE), Kiblix Festival (SI), Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje (SI), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (SRB), Lisboa Soa Festival (PT), Sonica Festival (SI). She was awarded Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention and nominated for Prix Cube.

https://agapea.si/

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Mark Peter Wright is an artist and researcher based in London, working at the intersection of art, critical theory and education. His practice explores the relationship between humans, animals, environments and their associated technologies of capture: critically and playfully generating debate through installation, performance and writing. His collaborative practice with Helena Hunter is called Matterlurgy and works across art, science and ecology. With Salomé Voegelin he co-convenes Points of Listening, a series of public activities exploring collective listening and soundmaking.

He has exhibited internationally at galleries and institutes including the ICA, Flat Time House, GV Art, IMT Gallery, Platform A, MIMA, Southbank Centre and TATE [UK], CCA [Scotland], Museum of Contemporary Art [Italy], Lydgalleriet [Norway] and New York Public Library [USA]. Performance and public interventions include Apiary Studios, Art Licks, Café Oto, The Showroom, V22 [UK] Trinity House Sq [Ireland], Bòlit Contemporary [Spain] and HIAP [Finland]. Lectures, workshops and papers have been presented at the Critical Media Lab [Switzerland], Harvard University [USA], University of Copenhagen [Denmark], University of Stavanger [Norway], Central St Martins, Goldsmiths University, Parasol Unit, South London Gallery and Yorkshire Sculpture Park [UK]. Recent peer reviewed articles include: Journal of Sonic Studies, Evental Aesthetics, Sensate Journal Harvard, Leonardo Music Journal, Continent Journal and Interference Journal. Anthology contributions and artist publications include: Listening and its not [SARU/Compost & Height], Tasked to Hear [Corbel Stone Press], Bio-critical Incidents [Sonic Terrain] and On Listening [Uniform Books]. 

https://markpeterwright.net/

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Hyperobjects Exhibition and Programme is supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland. Special thanks to Art Research Matters and Platform Arts for their in-kind support.

September Member of the Month | Jonathan Brennan

Jonathan Brennan (1978) is an artist living and working in Belfast since 2012. Originally from Dublin, he spent most of the previous decade in Brussels, Belgium where he studied painting at the École des Arts d’Anderlecht. He previously studied History of Art &  Architecture (and Spanish) at Dublin University, Trinity College Dublin and has a MSc in Multimedia Systems.

Jonathan works with various visual media such as printmaking, painting and photography. Digital technology can sometimes play a role in the process of creating his works. He is preoccupied by the relationship between digital and traditional techniques, and the values we impose on them. He is drawn to nature and landscape as subject matter and is fascinated by how urban and rural rub against each other in our cities.

Memory and place always play a significant role in his work. His works are in private collections in Europe and the US. He also teaches at the Belfast Print Workshop and builds websites.

His newest collection of works combining found photographs and screenprint will be published in Winter Papers Vol. 5 as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival.

Jonathan is a member of the Belfast Print Workshop, Catalyst and Vault Artist Studios.

To find out more about his practice check out: http://www.jonathanbrennanart.com

Catalyst At Lisbon | Radical Arcadia 3 OCT- 13 OCT 2019

Radical Arcadia
Exhibition and Special Events
3 October - 13 October 2019

Radical Arcadia is an interdisciplinary and off-site project of Catalyst Arts, that investigates and questions the idea of Arcadia as the poetic shaped space of harmonious living between human and nature. It aims to spark dialogue that falls into topics in art, science, anthropology and architecture, rethinking about our ecological relationships with our spatial environment. The project consists of a new cross-art form commission by artists Paddy Bloomer and Jasmin Marker, a participatory exhibition through an open call and audio session featuring David Shrigley’s Goat Music.

Cross-Art Forms Exhibition
Paddy Bloomer & Jasmin Marker

Launch: Thursday 3 October 2019, 7-10pm
Artist Talk by Jasmin Marker: Saturday 5 October 2019, 5:30pm

'Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use and space,' as Robert Venturi wrote. This cross-art forms exhibition explores the material and structural awareness of the tension between the need for human habitation against catastrophic natural forces, and the protection of nature's ecological mechanism. Radical Arcadia reflects on the contradiction between our pastoral visions and morals, and the rationality in actualising these ideals.

Special: Works on Paper
Isabel English, Michael Hanna & Hayley Gault

Launch: Thursday 3 October 2019, 7-10pm

This special exhibition contemplates what Arcadia means today, as opposed to 100 years ago in Ireland; and what types of space hold this imagery. As a point of reference, artists draw on ideas that respond, reflect, or contrast to the artist Paul Henry who painted the pastoral values of rural Ireland. Visitors are encouraged to make use of ideas from these works to approach a holistic interpretation of other exhibits in the gallery space.

Associated Events

Curator Tour by Edy Fung & Leah Corbett
Saturday 5 October 2019, 5pm

Catalyst Arts Co-Directors Edy and Leah guide you through the exhibitions, providing first-hand information and interesting insights into the process of developing and interpreting the underlying themes with artists, and how research thinking has formed curatorial concepts behind the exhibition.

Audio Session - David Shrigley: Goat Music
Saturday 5 October 2019, 6:30pm

Catalyst Arts is proud to present Goat Music from David Shrigley’s studio as an associated programme of Radical Arcadia. Goat Music includes recordings of the goats in the film as well as the soundtrack Shrigley composed to accompany the opening performance in Hydra. Shrigley's project for DESTE's renovated former slaughterhouse was a funny film shown in a historically unfunny place. Shrigley noted that although he also filmed goats in Malta, the goats in Scotland seem to be much happier and thus funnier because they are not used for meat production.

Artists

Paddy Bloomer is a Belfast-based artist and inventor who works with building typologies, structures and components which are drawn from everyday values as a process to understand and subvert permacultural principles. This includes exploiting unusual power sources, waste disposal, Health and Safety legislation and public infrastructures. In response to Lisbon Architecture Triennale: Taking the Country's Side, Paddy revisits ideas from his previous innovative structural projects 'Barn' and ­'Deployable Crannog'.

Jasmin Marker is a Belfast-based, German-born interdisciplinary artist working at cross-sections of bio-art, installation and [mostly non-human] performance. She often collaborates with members of the microbial kingdoms, exploring holistic approaches to sustainability. In this exhibition at Zaratan Arte Contemporânea, Jasmin uses Algae as a case study to investigate the concept 'Homo Economicus'. Her work encourages viewing human and non-human existence and relations with equal footing, speculating a world that neutralises our resistance to 'natural threats' and cohabitation with 'invasive species'.

Isabel English is an Irish artist currently based in Belfast. Her work revisits and extends on the theories of the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, a precursor of utopian city. She deconstructs architectonic elements from the ideal space and objects, natural or constructed, to envisage a contemporary arcadia where space can be indefinite, spontaneous or moveable.

Michael Hanna is a Belfast-based artist and co-founder of the artist-run organisation AMINI (Artists' Moving Image Northern Ireland). His photography reads beyond the surface of Lagan Weir, the main river in Belfast, and focuses on how the function and symbolism of the river is shaped and co-created by man-made system and activities in time.

Hayley Gault is a freelance curator, rural practitioner and farmer who lives and works between Belfast and Magheramorne. Her aim is to form a sustainable practice which expands concepts of artist, curator, researcher, producer, farmer, writer, and one which centres around environment, its ideologies, its futures, its realities and its practicalities, tracing contemporary modes of production of art, culture and food.

Radical Arcadia opens on the same weekend as the 2019 Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Kindly supported by British Council NI and Culture Ireland.

Catalyst Audio Tracks 002 | Resonance

Catalyst Audio Tracks is a Catalyst Members series that focuses on the world of sound art. We reached out to our members to submit work in Drone, Noise, Ambient, Electroacoustic, Field Recording, Synthesis Exploration, or All/None-of-the-above and this compilation is the result.

This is the 2nd iteration of Catalyst Audio Tracks with the first taking place in in the Sonic Arts Research Centre’s ‘Sonic Lab’. This Catalyst Audio Tracks however will first be presentatened on Saturday September 7th through the 'Resonance’ (Pictured Above) sound installation which was used to show work from Sunn O))), Holly Herndon, Objekt, Phurpa. Those will familiar with the Catalyst space will know how reverberant it is and how a great sound work can take advantage of such a space.

This iteration of Catalyst Audio Tracks features work from: Christopher Steenson, Dan Shipsides, Vasiliki Stasinaki, Aidan Deery, Gerard Carson, Susan Hughes, Tia Vellani, Colin Woods, John Thorp, John D'Arcy, Juliette Liautaud, Karl McEvoy, Johanna Nulty, Stephen Todd, Jennifer Moore, Fiona Jiandani, Hadi Bastani

Director Spotlight | Liam McCartan

Hey Liam, Thanks so much for being our first ever Director Spotlight. So for those who don’t know you, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your practice? 

Hi, I’m Liam. I’m a 25 year old PhD student and electronic musician. In regards to my practice, it consists of composition, sound art and design that explores contemporary electronic music, genre deconstruction, sonic memory, and hauntological composition. 

 And how long have you been a director here at Catalyst Arts? 

Coming up to completing my two years now with my curated sound-art exhibition ‘Resonance’ closing this week.

Can you sum up your time at catalyst in three words? 

No I can’t.

What has been the best part of working at Catalyst for you? 

As well as meeting some amazing people that I’m sure will be friends for years to come. An amazing part of Catalyst was how much it improved my understanding of my own work due to constant stimulating conversations with many artists outside of my practice.   

Any advice you would give to a potential new director?

Play to your strengths, in here they are more valuable than you may think.

Finally, would you recommend a Directorship with Catalyst Arts and why? 

I would highly recommend a directorship. As well as the great people you will meet because of Catalyst, you get a chance to fully immerse yourself in the running and programming of a gallery that has had a 25 year-old tradition of exploration in art and you will join a long-line of directors that have contributed incredible amounts to the art world. 

Liam’s Director’s show Resonance runs until Thursday September 5th 9pm with a special closing event Catalyst Audio Tracks on Saturday September 7th.

Catalyst Arts is currently seeking new Directors. To find out more about the job an on how to Apply click here!

Volunteer Call Out for FIX19

Catalyst Arts are launching a call for volunteers to be part of our upcoming live art biennale FIX19. 

FIX19 is an internationally renowned festival for live arts taking place from 20th September to 3rd October. Over these two weeks, more than a dozen local and international artists perform in different venues in Belfast city centre.

We require event volunteers provisionally on the following dates: 20-22 September, 26-29 September, 2 and 3 October. We might need support for other dates as well.

We are also looking for a volunteer who is experienced and passionate about the use and knowledge of social media to promote the festival through various channels such as instagram, twitter and facebook. This is a volunteer role that could start immediately and can be done remotely - from home, on the train or even from the sofa.

We are looking for dynamic and motivated individuals who are interested in contemporary art and visual culture. You will be able to gain experience in the preparation and execution of performances, including installation, artist support, invigilation, live streaming and other tasks. This is a unique opportunity to get behind the scenes and establish close contacts with curators, artists and participants of FIX19.

If you would like to volunteer, please email to catalystarts@gmail.com with your name, phone number, and the date and time you wish to sign up for. Positions are offered on a first come first served basis and we will be in touch to confirm.

Apply by: Friday 13th of September.

FIX19: SEP 20TH – OCT 3RD, 2019

The internationally renowned biennial of live art FIX was established by Catalyst Arts in 1994. For twenty-five years, FIX has consistently delivered an innovative programme of local and international live, sonic and performance artists to the city of Belfast and is one of Europe’s longest running live art festivals. 

FIX19 (Sep 20th – Oct 3rd, 2019) engages with a mix of established, emerging, local and international artists, utilising different media and approaches to performance that help to redefine what FIX is for Belfast now and what it has been in the past. Through a curated programme full of exciting new work in different venues in Belfast city centre, FIX19 questions ideas of transnationalism through very different perspectives, gives emerging artists a unique platform and explores the world of performance-related films and video works. 

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Bbeyond (Belfast, UK)
Amanda Coogan (Dublin, Ireland / Belfast, UK)
Lee Hamill (Co. Meath, Ireland)
Brennagh Meehan (Belfast, UK)
Rory Mullen (Manchester, UK)
Aoife O'Connor (Belfast, UK)
Marie Ouazzani & Nicolas Carrier (Paris, France)
Evamaria Schaller (Cologne, Germany)
Dominic Thorpe (Co. Kildare, Ireland)
Bettina Wenzel (Cologne, Germany)

More information on the artists and programme coming soon.

FIX19 Member's Open Call | Video and Film Work

CATALYST ARTS MEMBERS OPPORTUNITY
FOR FIX19
DEADLINE: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH

For FIX19, Catalyst Arts is providing a special opportunity for our members that focuses on performance-related films and video art. This year’s performance festival (Sep 20th – Oct 3rd, 2019), will include a special screening for these films and video works in a new venue in Belfast city centre. This opportunity is open to Catalyst Arts members. Projectors and screens can be provided.

FIX is an internationally renowned biennial of live art, established by Catalyst Arts in 1994. For twenty-five years FIX has consistently delivered an innovative programme of local and international live, sonic and performance artists to the city of Belfast and is one of Europe’s longest running live art festivals. There are no restriction on the length or style of submissions.

This year's festival will run from Culture Night on September 20th to Late Night Art on October 3rd with what will be a programme full of exciting new work. We're engaging with a mix of established, emerging, local and international artists, utilising different media and approaches to performance that help to redefine what FIX is for Belfast now and what it has been in the past.

To apply please send the following information (max. 5 MB) to ​catalystarts@gmail.com​
by September 9th 23:59:

1. Links to your proposed video work, download links or video files and images/stills with 5 MB max
2. Short description of the proposed video work
3. Title and length of the work and the artist.


This is a standard members opportunity, you can become a Catalyst member anytime and read about other benefits on our
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catalystarts
Please Submit work to: catalystarts@gmail.com

www.catalystarts.org.uk

FIX19 is kindly supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council and The Foyle Foundation.

August Member of the Month | Aimee Magee

Aimee Magee is a visual artist specialising in sculpture & installation and currently works from Pollen Arts studios. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Art in 2016 part of which she also conducted studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Aimee's practice explores an array of historical and political themes, which manifests in her choice of media. Using ready available materials such as bread and newspaper the artists plays with the symbols inherit in them, while using traditional craft methods to subvert their meaning. Plaiting and weaving newspaper she creates installations, sculptures and wearables activated in a performative context.

Since graduating Aimee has also worked on community arts projects with the Beat Carnival as a member of the Carnival Arts Steering Group and the circus.

to find out more about her practice check out aimeemagee.wixsite.com/artistpage

Resonance | 1st August - 5th September

Resonance

I. the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.

II. the power to evoke enduring images, memories, and emotions.

III. the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighbouring object

Resonance is an all sound-art exhibition that explores the ways sound influences that which surrounds it as well as its ability to evoke mental and emotional reaction. With work from Sunn O))), Holly Herndon, TJ Hertz (AKA Objekt), and Phurpa accumulating in a cyclical exhibition displaying one sound piece at a time.

Sunn O)))

Conceptualised and formed in March 1998 Sunn O))) have been challenging the ways we think about music in the twenty years since. A synthesis of diverse: drone, metal, minimalism/maximalism verging on the edge of pure sonic ecstasy, meditation and trance through the power, beauty and colour of sound pressure emanating from their legendary Sunn O))) backline and their earth shaking tectonic compositions of existence, dedicated to the mysteries of life and the cosmos. 

Co-founders Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson have forged paths and connections between the worlds of Metal, contemporary art, drone, new music, jazz and minimalism with startling results while remaining true to the eternal principles of volume, density, elasticity of time, blossoming of saturation viable only to the disciples and fetishists of electric guitar, synthesis, multiple gain stages and some of history's greatest pure valve amplification.

Holly Herndon

Born in the mountains of East Tennessee, she went from singing in church to enrolling in a German exchange program.  Adopting Berlin as a second home, she cut her teeth performing in the city’s clubs prior to attending Mills College.  She utilized the laptop as “the most intimate instrument,”cultivating live voice processing systems and developing custom vocal patches to construct experimental pieces performed in real-time. 

Researching platform politics for her PhD at Stanford, she assembled her 2015 sophomore offering Platform.  Telematic performance at Stanford fueled 'DAO' and integrated custom sampling of daily activities online into the songcraft of 'Chorus' and 'Home'.  As it sparked commentary on “platform politics”, Platform closed out 2015 by gracing year-end lists from Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, and The Wire. Primarily composed alongside collaborators online, it was “the first commercially released album to include a track intended to trigger autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR).”

TJ Hertz (AKA Objekt)

TJ was born in Tokyo but raised in Belgium and the U.K. Growing up in Oxford, Hertz’s interest in music started at an early age, and with the usual stints in bands, a love of '90s IDM drew him to electronic music. Studying electronic and information engineering at Oxford University, Hertz would eventually move to Berlin, where a job developing software for Native Instruments would also inform his music production.

His recent work represents an aesthetic departure from previous work’s largely synthetic tonality, drawing from organic source material and natural textures to illustrate perplexing and unfamiliar sceneries in photorealistic detail. In his recent album, Cocoon Crush, Objekt diverges further still from his musical influences to craft the purest manifestation of his own musical personality to date: an intriguing and enigmatic album whose reference points are hard to pin down, in which ghostly synth passages weave through mind-bending, weighty drums, and ASMR-triggering foley collages scrape and sparkle. Through meticulous sculpting, Objekt traces a rich and impressionistic journey through claustrophobia, hope, guilt, anxiety and joy, nested in layers of sonic detail which reward with every listen.

Phurpa

Phurpa began in the middle of the 1990's in Moscow, when a group of artists and musicians led by Alexei Tegin and based at the legendary Fabrique of Cardinal Art commenced their studies of traditional ritual music, drifting away from the field of contemporary electroacoustic and industrial music with the intent to delve deeper into the ancient musical cultures of the ancient Egypt, Iran and Tibet.

The original 2003 lineup of the project that emerged as a result was dubbed Phurpa (one of the five tutelary deities of the Father Tantra in Bon tradition), and all the members have carried on with their research in the field of Bon and Buddhist liturgies up to the present day. Lead by Alexey Tegin since 2003, Phurpa has gained wide recognition and praise for their truly unique performances and eerie rendering of the ritual chants of the pre-Buddhist BON tradition of Tibet. Their musical ensemble is solely based around ritual Tibetan instruments. The main traditional feature of such an ensemble is the mantra chanting, a unique overtone chanting called "rgyud-skad", or the Tantric voice, which is based on the principle of the singer's transmogrification during the so-called "chanting meditation". Phurpa’s rendering of this special use of the most primordial of instruments, the voice.

Deadline Extended | Director Call-Out

Due to technical issues, Catalyst Arts is extending the Directors Call-Out until the 10th of August.

Catalyst Arts welcomes expressions of interest applications for new Co-Directors

Catalyst Arts has been one of the most important and innovative artist-led spaces for contemporary art in Belfast since it began in 1993. The driving force behind the organisation has always been the determined and enthusiastic committee of directors who have worked over the years to ensure the gallery remains at the forefront of the visual art scene in Northern Ireland – improving, producing and promoting art and culture and the advancement of education and training in the arts.

Catalyst Arts directorship programme has a local and international reputation of providing a unique training ground for artistic, curatorial and cultural production. Applicants who are seeking to advance their experience within an artist-led model of gallery programming and operations are encouraged, with successful candidates gaining valuable skills in installation, production, funding applications, commissioning, outreach, education, archiving and administration work. This is an exciting opportunity to join Catalyst Arts at the beginning of a new chapter as one of Northern Ireland’s leading contemporary art organisations.

Although previous experience in all areas is not essential, interested candidates are encouraged to review and consider the director criteria when making their applications.

The role of co-director is a voluntary position carried out over two years, on a rolling basis.

For more information on the role at Catalyst follow link Catalyst Arts Job Description  application forms can be found at Catalyst Arts Director Application Form

Applications should be submitted by email to:

catalystarts@gmail.com

Deadline for applications: 23:59 Saturday August 10th 2019

If successful, candidates will be notified by Wednesday August 14th and interviews held on  Wednesday 21st August.

Successful candidates would begin their induction in the Autumn 2019.

Open Calls | FIX19

FIX is an internationally renowned biennial of live art, established by Catalyst Arts in 1994. For twenty-five years FIX has consistently delivered an innovative programme of local and international live, sonic and performance artists to the city of Belfast and is one of Europe’s longest running live art festivals. 

This year's festival will run from Culture Night on September 20th to Late Night Art on October 3rd with what will be a programme full of exciting new work. We're engaging with a mix of established, emerging, local and international artists, utilising different media and approaches to performance that help to redefine what FIX is for Belfast now and what it has been in the past. 

Catalyst Arts is now seeking proposals for FIX19 through two Open Calls:

FIX19 Emerging Artists Open Call

Emerging artists and recent graduates based in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland who have graduated from third level education in either 2019/2018/2017 only are eligible to apply. We are seeking performances that respond to ideas around ‘Emerging’. We encourage a broad interpretation of this theme through aspects of a work becoming or developing. Proposed work can be anything from small interventions to durational pieces that last the length of the opening exhibition. Although new work is encouraged it is not strictly requested. Successful proposals will be showcased as part of the official opening of FIX in conjunction with Culture Night on the 20th of September. 

FIX19 International Artists Open Call

For international artists of all ages based in the UK, Ireland or other European countries. We are seeking performances that respond to ideas of the “transnational”. We encourage a broad interpretation of this theme and its personal, political, interactive or even ambiguous aspects in a work. Proposed work can be anything from small or larger interventions, screenings to durational pieces. Although new work is encouraged it is not strictly requested. The performance dates by the selected artists of this international open call will be scheduled individually together with the artists.

For information of how to apply, please follow:  
Emerging Artists Open Call or International Open Call.

Deadline for all applications: 23:59 Saturday August 3rd, 2019

Successful applicants will be informed by August 10th.

FIX19 is kindly supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.

New Director | Thomas Wells

Thomas Wells is an artist originally from Manchester. They explore parallels between cities, and their connections to other post-industrial sites, in particular how Queer people have assimilated, hidden and thrived in these environments of gender binary ‘role play’. This is explored through a variety of ways; devised performances integrate video, audio and archive through movement, gesture and conversation developing a personal narrative rooted in context of time and place. Now based in Belfast they graduated from The Glasgow School of Art (2009) and hold an MA in Education from King’s College London (2014). As well as Catalyst, Thomas is a member of the Array Collective and a contributor to public art organisation Household.

Speechless Action | 20th June - 18th July 2019

Speechless Action
20th June - 18th July 2019 | Opening 20th June 6-9pm

Speechless Action will feature a collection of newly developed work by artists Sarah Boulton, Maïto Jobbé duval and Kate Murphy. The exhibition is interested not just in the individual works, which span video, drawing, printed matter and writing, but in their layout, contextual sense and relationship to the viewer. This attitude is shared by much of the work, where the context of an action or narrative or image holds as much attention as the actions, words and images do themselves. The works explore a development of meaning through juxtaposition, sequence and series, and an interest in how information, in the widest sense, relates. They also share a relationship to the readymade: situations or narratives, actions, images and moving images that exist in the world already but are seen and transformed through a shift in their presentation or backdrop, whether through storytelling, poetry or editing.

Sarah Boulton (b. 1989) is based in Mid Wales. She graduated from Slade School of Art in 2015 and has recently presented her work with Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, Camden Arts Centre, London, Caraboo Projects, Bristol, Rhubaba Gallery, Edinburgh, Cell Project Space, London, Patara Gallery, Tbilisi, Best British Poetry Anthology, Danarti Magazine and Tender Journal. Her first collection of poetic texts will be published near the end of 2019 by Care of Time. 

Maïto Jobbé duval (b. 1985) is an artist and theatre designer based in London. For this exhibition she presents extracts of a larger ongoing narrative based work drawing on the framework of the graphic novel. Past shows and performances include: It’s not the digging it’s the dirt, Dirt Space, London 2016, Transforming, Dyson Gallery, London 2015, Artists’ Realities, Claustro Sor Juana, Mexico DF 2015, Familiar Distances, The Little Gallery, Calgary Canada 2014. Maïto studied at Camberwell College of Arts and The Royal College of Art, both in London.

Kate Murphy was born in Belfast, 1989 and is based in Norwich. She studied Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Ulster University 2007-2008 and BA Fine Art (Sculpture) at Norwich University College of the Arts 2008-2011, and did an Erasmus exchange at Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste Karlsruhe, Germany. Exhibitions of the work include VIDEO, PAINTINGS (with Russell Osborne) 13a, Norwich 2015, OUTPOST Members Show selected by Lynda Morris and Chris Rawcliffe, Norwich 2016, Soft Ramp, Gildengate House, Norwich 2016, Blumen, Unthank Artspace, Norwich 2017 and Index, Piper Keys, London 2019.

This exhibition is kindly supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Co-Director Call-Out

Catalyst Arts welcomes expressions of interest applications for new Co-Directors

Catalyst Arts has been one of the most important and innovative artist-led spaces for contemporary art in Belfast since it began in 1993. The driving force behind the organisation has always been the determined and enthusiastic committee of directors who have worked over the years to ensure the gallery remains at the forefront of the visual art scene in Northern Ireland – improving, producing and promoting art and culture and the advancement of education and training in the arts.

Catalyst Arts directorship programme has a local and international reputation of providing a unique training ground for artistic, curatorial and cultural production. Applicants who are seeking to advance their experience within an artist-led model of gallery programming and operations are encouraged, with successful candidates gaining valuable skills in installation, production, funding applications, commissioning, outreach, education, archiving and administration work. This is an exciting opportunity to join Catalyst Arts at the beginning of a new chapter as one of Northern Ireland’s leading contemporary art organisations.

Although previous experience in all areas is not essential, interested candidates are encouraged to review and consider the director criteria when making their applications.

The role of co-director is a voluntary position carried out over two years, on a rolling basis.

For more information on the role at Catalyst follow link Catalyst Arts Job Description  application forms can be found at Catalyst Arts Director Application Form

Applications should be submitted by email to:

catalystarts@gmail.com

Deadline for applications: 23:59 Saturday July 13th 2019

If successful, candidates will be notified by Wednesday July 17th and interviews held on  Wednesday 24th July

Successful candidates would begin their induction in the Autumn 2019.

Eye Test | Ulster University Sculpture Lens Student Exhibition

Eye Test is a group exhibition by the second-year sculpture lens students from Ulster University. The show presents an eclectic field of interests around historical and contemporary narratives of religion, memory, cultural practices, simulacra, the body and other bodies, public and private spaces. Contemplations of fragility, lost and false promises are explored through a diverse mix of practices involving installation, photography, video, sculpture and performance. 

Exhibition Opening Thursday May 30th 7pm  and runs until June 6th 

Exhibiting Artists: Caitrín Mac Giolla Brídhe, Klara Burić ,Maria del Pilar Morales Caamano, Janice Cherry, Ruta Franskiaviciute, Caitíln Gallagher, Euan Gébler, Meg Jeanie, Katie McBride, Kate O’Neill, Merel van Erpers Roijaards, Claudia Rose, Nathan Turner, Matthew Wilson

Open Call | Catalyst Member’s Show 2019

In Orbit

Catalyst Arts Members Show

18th April – 9th May 2019

Opening: Tuesday 18th April 6–9pm

In a constant state of flux, let us see practice as process. In orbit we accentuate the transient, the never ending and the non-conclusive . Pushing towards a point of collapse we can capture the avenues of the inbetween. Now in its 26th year, Catalyst Arts is seeking works for our annual members’ exhibition to welcome this new era of making and creating.  

Catalyst members invited to show a piece of work in any medium.

To take part applicants must already be a member of Catalyst Arts through our original membership scheme or become a new Standard or Premium member through our Patreon page. 

Being a member is a great way to support Catalyst and have access to exclusive members opportunities throughout the year.

You can become a member through our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/catalystarts

Terms and Conditions:

Due to the large amount of submissions annually received applicants must consider the following specifications:

– Maximum dimensions for canvas and photographic prints are 2.50×2.50 meters.

– Sculptures and installations must be no larger than 3 meters cubed.

– If you wish to submit a video work all technical equipment must be provided.

– The submitted work must be delivered or posted to the gallery between 9am – 5pm on the 11th and 12th of April.  Please provide your name, title, medium and date included with your work. Work delivered after these dates will not be accepted for exhibition.

Dates for collection of work are the 10th and 11th of May between 11am – 5pm. All work must be collected on these days.

We kindly ask that each artist keep their submission to one piece of work. Due to the high level of submissions each year we cannot facilitate a series or body of work.

Please note that all work submitted will be curated and installed by Catalyst Directors. They reserve the right to show the work as they believe fits best within the space and in correspondence to the exhibition as a whole. Each artwork will be handled and installed with the utmost respect and consideration for all participating artists and the space.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us at catalystarts@gmail.com