Mark Fell (2023): the room where the organ was (excerpt)

the room where the organ was (2023)
Multi-media installation led by Mark Fell & RNCM composition students (Devon Bonelli, Connor Cox, Joe Hunt, Joel Kupiainen, Emmy Lambert, Tanguy Pocquet, Pablo Sonnaillon, and James Weatherley-Buss)
Documentation excerpt by Emmy Lambert, during the world premiere at the 'Made In Manchester' festival, Studio 8, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, May 2023.
//
Programme Note:
This new installation has been made by multidisciplinary artist Mark Fell in collaboration with RNCM composition students especially for the multichannel technology in the college’s flagship music technology resource Studio 8. This new work is jointly commissioned by the RNCM’s Centre for Practice Research in Science and Music (PRiSM) and School of Composition.
In response to the RNCM’s 50th Anniversary, this work acknowledges the studio’s previous life in housing the college’s chamber organ. The work combines frequency modulation synthesis with new recordings of woodwind instruments through guitar effects pedals. This creates and deconstructs an imaginary electric organ, saturating the studio in multichannel sound.
//
Mark Fell Biography:
Fell’s practice draws upon electronic music subcultures, experimental film, contemporary philosophy and radical politics. Over the past 30 years his output has grown into a significant body of work-from early electronic sound works and recorded pieces, to installation, critical texts, curatorial projects, educational systems, and choreographic performances.
The diversity and importance of Fell's practice is reflected in the range and scale of institutions that have presented his work: VAC Foundation Palazzo delle Zattere (Venice), Hong Kong National Film Archive, The Baltic (Gateshead), Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Laboral (XIxon), The Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Royal Festival Hall (London), The Serpentine (London), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Whitechapel Gallery (London), The Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Barbican (London), Raven Row (London), Seville Biennale, The Australian Centre For Moving Image (Melbourne), Artists Space (NYC), Moma (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC), Corcoran (DC), Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (NY), Lampo/Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (Chicago), Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe), Pirelli Hanger Biccoca (Milan) among others. Fell's work is in the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna) and has been recognised by ARS Electronica (Linz). He has worked with a number of artists including: Yasunao Tone, Laurie Spiegel, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Okkyung Lee, Luke Fowler, Will Guthrie, Peter Gidal, Terre Thaemlitz, John Chowning, Ernest Edmonds, Peter Rehberg, Oren Ambarchi, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff and Mat Steel (as SND).
//
This work is supported by PRiSM, the Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music at the Royal Northern College of Music, funded by the Research England fund Expanding Excellence in England (E3).