A live spatial dialogue between improvised drawing and instrumental sound. Created and performed by Helena Hamilton with Hard Rain.

Malfunctioning Wor(l)ds: (im)Material Dimensions asks what communication becomes when it moves beyond words and is carried through listening, drawing, sound, adjustment, and response.

Made for the SARC Lab, the work brings together improvised drawing, live image, amplified sound, spatial audio, and instrumental performance. An overhead camera captures the drawing as it is made, feeding the live image into multiple displays throughout the space. Small marks, erasures, hesitations, and changes of pressure become visible at the scale of the room.

The sound of drawing is amplified, processed, and spatialised through a bespoke live system. As the drawing develops, it shapes aspects of how its own sound moves and changes through the Lab. The musicians are positioned within the space, with their instrumental sounds amplified as part of the same live environment.

Hamilton and the musicians improvise in relation to one another. The drawing shifts with what is heard across the space, from its own amplified and spatialised sound to the musicians’ playing, as well as what is felt through the resistance of the surface. The musicians respond to the drawing, to the spatialised sound, to one another, and to moments of density, pressure, hesitation, and silence. No single performer, instrument, image, score, or system leads in a fixed way. Direction passes between drawing, sound, gesture, silence, spatial movement, and musical response.

The performance is held together by a shared commitment to listen, respond, adjust, and make space for one another. The work does not treat difference as a problem to solve or as something to celebrate from a distance, but as a creative force that shapes what becomes possible between performers, materials, and sound.

At a time when difference is often used to separate, oppose, or harden positions, the work proposes another model. It asks what communication might become when difference remains active, audible, and visible: not as a barrier to relation, but as its catalyst.

Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

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TICKETS

£15/£10 (Free for QUB staff & students)

Donations gratefully received.

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OUR FUNDERS

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble are supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and are Ensemble in Residence at Queen's University Belfast.

Description supplied by the event organiser.