Other worksThese works are experiments, off-shoots, early seeds, one-off commissions.

Sweetener

video / 12 minutes / 2021



Sweetener takes its title from the TV production practice of 'sweetening' the response of a live studio audience with pre- recorded laughter samples. Set against the colours of Battenberg cake and Mr Blobby, the lm simulates a well- behaved audience via post-production collage, providing a laugh track for our everyday sitcom of shared delirium.

As they watch some unseen performance, the audience see-saws between forced and spontaneous laughter. Kept apart by the threat of viral transmission, they somehow manage to stay synchronised; laughter proves infectious.

The video blurs the space between live and recorded, authentic and fake, whilst gesturing towards the almost comical fatigue of a year in lockdown. As polite chuckles mutate into hysteria, the crowd appears to ask, 'are you feeling what I'm feeling?'

Created, edited & performed by: Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit
Outside eye & post-production sound: Nat Norland

Sweetener was commissioned by the Performance Research Network at Newcastle University.
PREVIOUS DATES> 05 May 2021-ongoing / Performance Research Network, Online 'Liveness' Exhibition

RESOURCES Explore the whole Liveness exhibition online




Spore Score

audio / 16 minutes / 2021


In Spore Score, we collaborated with sound designer Alice Boyd to contemplate the inner life of fungi. Fragments of text from wide-ranging sources percolate, whilst an ever-changing soundscape emerges from music improvised using the guidance of a spore print.

Inspired by John Cage’s Indeterminacy, the texts are selected and ordered randomly from a bank of options, and the music created separately, each part recorded in isolation. The resulting sound collage mines elements of chance, audio processing and environmental data to explore the fruitful collaboration between humans, fungi and technology, asking how we might listen in new ways to the natural world, and how it speaks to us under jeopardy.

Created and performed by: Clara Potter-Sweet, Ben Kulvichit and Alice Boyd, after Indeterminacy by John Cage
Composer and editor: Alice Boyd
Violin: Ben Kulvichit

Photo:
Unsplash

Spore Score was created with commissioning support from The North Wall as part of Alchymy Festival 2021.
PREVIOUS DATES> 03-31 May 2021 / Alchymy Festival, North Wall Arts Centre (online)

RESOURCES Check out Alice’s music practice.

Look at this sweet photo of us recording the piece in our bedroom studios, courtesy of lockdown 2021. Bless.






You Have Reached Emergency Chorus

performance for indoor spaces / 15 minutes / 2018



We were invited to create a short piece of 'playful performance' for Beta Public, a night of video games and performance at Camden People's Theatre curated by Thomas Martin and Pat Ashe.

We controlled the performance remotely, using telephones to relay text and instructions from outside of the theatre space to audience volunteers. They spoke alternately with our voices and with their own, accompanied by the asinine melancholy of on-hold jingles. This piece explored some of our interest in telephones/mediums of communication, that then spilled over into Something in Your Voice.

Created by: Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit
Additional text by: Nat Norland
PREVIOUS DATES> 14 May 2019 / BBC R+D, London (invited audience)
> 24 November 2018 / Beta Public IX, Camden People's Theatre