Adventures in Sound
(presented by Acoustic Survey Art Lab)
A month-long sound art lab exploring how layers of sound accumulate and transform across time, space, and community.
Adventures in Sound brings together sound artists, improvisers, and the public in a five-week programme of live performance, workshops, and deep listening. Each Saturday in August, artists will respond to the space with their own sonic practice – from saxophones and strings to contact mics, DIY instruments, electronics, and voice – layering sounds into a growing collective work.
Each session will offer opportunities for visitors and audiences to participate actively, learn, and co‑create, whether through hands‑on workshops, short lectures on sound, group improvisations, or collaborative performances. Every Saturday will be a one‑off experience, shaped by the artists and those who join them.
Throughout the duration, the space will also be animated by small sound projects, unexpected interventions, and displays of visual art, sculptures, and art‑objects by a diverse range of Arts Central Artists.
Adventures in Sound celebrates sound as a material that can be gathered, layered, and transformed – revealing the acoustic “footprints” we leave behind.
Sat 2 Aug – Sonic Sediments
12-4pm
Our opening day sets the stage for the series with a collaborative workshop. Take part in listening exercises, a scavenger hunt, and collective “scratch orchestra” sessions, and help shape the sound environment for the day.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Simple%20sampler&c=apps&utm_source=emea_Med
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/noiseee/id1231296094
Sat 9 Aug – Mark Browne + Bruno Guastalla + Jon Samsworth: Instruments, Voice and Improvisation
12-4pm
Saxophonist and percussionist Mark Browne joins us with a thrilling arsenal of DIY instruments and objects. Expect spontaneous improvisations, unexpected textures, and collaborative sessions inviting the audience to explore sound-making.
Bruno Guastalla has been a violin and 'cello maker/restorer for the past forty years, as well as a practising musician. Questions around perception, language and shape-making come up a lot in his approach. Bruno uses voice and electronics as well as 'cello
Jon Samsworth is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with an interest in improvisation, audio production, cajons and crumhorns.
Sat 16 Aug – Lawrence Casserley: Electronic Improvisation
12-4pm
Lawrence Casserley will lead an exploration of real-time sound transformation, demonstrating how his custom-built Signal Processing Instrument reshapes live audio from voice, percussion, and found objects. Participants will have the chance to see and hear their own sounds transformed through his live electronics, creating shifting textures and immersive sonic landscapes. Lawrence will also discuss his unique approach to improvisation, blending acoustic and electronic elements, and guide participants in collaborative sound-making exercises.
Sat 23 Aug – Sylvia Hallett + Ivor Kallin: Violins, Voice and Found Objects
12-4pm
Sylvia Hallett works with violin, voice, and contact-mic’d found objects such as branches, wheels, and scrap materials to create rich, textural improvisations. In this session, she’ll explore sound-making using everyday materials and invite participants to listen closely, experiment, and respond. She’ll be joined by Ivor Kallin, who will guide a vocal improvisation inspired by the rhythmic traditions of Hebridean waulking songs, encouraging collective participation through voice and repetition.
Sat 30 Aug – Sonic Sediments
12-4pm
Our closing day ends the series with a collaborative workshop. Take part in listening exercises, a scavenger hunt, and collective “scratch orchestra” sessions, and help shape the sound environment for the day.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Simple%20sampler&c=apps&utm_source=emea_Med
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/noiseee/id1231296094
Sonic Sediments
will continue throughout the month of August
12-4pm
Take part in listening exercises, a scavenger hunt, and collective “scratch orchestra” sessions, and help shape the sound environment for the day.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Simple%20sampler&c=apps&utm_source=emea_Med
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/noiseee/id1231296094
Sat 9 Aug – Mark Browne + Bruno Guastalla + Jon Samsworth: Instruments, Voice and Improvisation
Sat 16 Aug – Lawrence Casserley: Electronic Improvisation
Sat 23 Aug – Sylvia Hallett + Ivor Kallin: Violins, Voice and Found Objects
Sat 30 Aug – Sonic Sediments
12-4pm
Sonic Sediments
will continue throughout the month of August
Mark Browne began playing music with an aspiration to play the guitar like Frank Zappa. Eventually, in 1980, he picked up a saxophone.
From 1983 to 1986 he played with Cockpit Improvised Music [with Adam Bohman, Jonathan Bohman, Richard Crow, Nick Couldry et al]. He was an occasional member of Conspiracy [with Adam Bohman, Andy Hammond, John Telfer and Nick Couldry]. In 1994 Mark performed in Denmark as a guest of Martin Klapper [released on scatterArchive].
Throughout the 1990s, Mark had concerts and made recordings with Lol Coxhill and attended the first Eddie Prévost London Improvisation Workshops.
In 2010 he formed Crush!!! [with Sonic Pleasure and Ian MacGowan]
Mark has been a member of Oxford Improvisers since 2019. Several recordings [with Lol Coxhill, Pat Thomas, Martin Hackett and Alex Ward et al] released on scatterArchive. Current interests remain with the development of a saxophone language within the context of free improvised music (or as a preferable term: Furniture For The Soul). more here.
Bruno Guastalla has been a violin and 'cello maker/restorer for the past forty years, as well as a practising musician. Questions around perception, language and shape-making come up a lot in his approach. Bruno uses voice and electronics as well as 'cello and has collaborated amongst others with Philipp Wachsmann, Dominic Lash and the dancer Macarena Ortuzar.
more here
Bruno will play pieces and improvisations for cello, with and without electronics, which are more (and less) experimental in the thinking behind them: 'harmonics of real strings' by John Lely, and various explorations using electronics, playing with ideas about memory and mirrors.
Jon Samsworth is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with an interest in improvisation, audio production, cajons and crumhorns.
Lawrence Casserley (born Essex, England, 1941) has devoted his career to the creation and promotion of live performance electronic music in a wide variety of ways for more than fifty years. In 1967 he became one of the first students of electronic music on the new course at the Royal College of Music, London, taught by Tristram Cary. Since leaving the RCM in 1995 he has worked with many of the leading improvisers, particularly Evan Parker and his Electracoustic Ensemble. While he focuses primarily on the real-time transformation of other musicians’ sounds, he also uses voice, percussion, home-made instruments and found objects as sources for his Signal Processing Instrument.
Casserley’s instrumental approach to live computer sound processing is the hallmark of his work, which is documented on many CDs; he has performed and given workshops throughout Europe and in North and South America, Asia and Japan. Current collaborations include Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Philipp Wachsmann, Trevor Taylor, Gianni Mimmo, Martin Mayes, Nicola Baroni, Martin Hackett, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, Jeffrey Morgan, Harri Sjöström, Yoko Miura, Mia Zabelka and Viv Corringham. He is a regular member of Oxford Improvisers.
Ivor Kallin plays viola with the London Improvisers Orchestra and sometimes without the London Improvisers Orchestra but uses his voice instead:
A Wee Dug Stole A Haddy Bone - Pibroch Viola Improvisations | Ivor Kallin | Linear Obsessional
Bagpipe Practice Room | Ivor Kallin | scatterArchive
He plays bass and vocalises with the Glowering Figs:
Glowering Figs | Glowering Figs | SLAM Productions
He also presents a weekly radio show on Resonance FM as Ambrosia Rasputin:
The Ambrosia Rasputin Show by Resonance FM | Mixcloud
and in a previous life, made lots of silly wee films with John Bisset:
If a workshop situation arises, the plan will be to conduct vocal improvisations inspired by the Hebridean waulking songs tradition.
