Two-work audiovisual exhibition created in collaboration with Universal Serial Bus. Shown as part of a three week sound art exhibition series entitled ‘Conversations’ curated by Louise K Wilson and Alan Dunn at Space@Design Gallery, University of Leeds, Leeds, Uk across March, 2025.

The exhibition explores and celebrates the edge, the periphery, the fringe—those aspects often overlooked or that evade our attention. The works in progress on display are the result of a shared interest in collage, antiquated media formats, their recording and playback technologies, and their foibles, as well as the natural environment. The resulting works pull at the threads of audiovisual conventions and best practice, encouraged through sharing of texts such as the writings of queer theorist Jack Halberstam on the power of the derided—wild things, flawed things— and reflections on video and sound hierarchies in the anatomy audiovisual practice. Multiple acts of processing have been employed, remixing and ripping, compressing and un-zipping, in an effort to get closer to (and further away from?) the edge.

The book collage video (13’41’’) was born from a shared interest in collage and the old print material that often serve as both its subject and source. Here, we have sought to animate these elements, bringing them into an audiovisual medium. Following the exhibition’s theme, At the Edge, the video visually explores the margins of books, focusing on the minor details and textures found. Sonically, alongside synthesized and natural sound, the piece incorporates drones produced from the quiet moments of classical music records, sounds captured by microphones capable of detecting frequencies beyond human hearing, and sounds unearthed through scanning radio transmissions.

The fern video triptych (3’, 4’ and 5’) focuses on the humble fern—pervasive, vital, yet often overlooked. Shot on night vision cameras during evenings spent scouting local woods and forests, each video abstracts the intricate forms and details of the ferns. The quiet, human-less ambient sound, along with the editing, pacing, and interplay of sound and image within each video, as well as the interplay of the three videos together, aims to create soothing rhythms that reflect the tranquil, understated essence of the ferns.