Boundary Condition: Áine O'Dwyer + Theo Alexander and Qow + The Shield

Boundary Condition features 10+ artists in a hybrid of audiovisual live sets & immersive projections; séances in resonant vessels, site-specific performances, studies on the movement of waves, ancient fantasy aesthetics, perpetual becoming, a host for transmigrational sound, insurmountable contradictions, oceanic archetypes, discourses of fragility, poetic imperfections, acoustic decay, futuristic artefacts, myriads of overtones and distant memories in a historic 12th century church.St James Garlickhythe is a parish church nicknamed "Wren's lantern” owing to its profusion of windows. The earliest surviving reference to the church is as ecclesiam Sancti Jacobi in a 12th-century will. All was lost in the Great Fire. Rebuilding began a decade later, as recorded on the Victorian vestry boards prominent in the church porch.

Áine O’Dwyer
O’Dwyer is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is informed by both the conceptual concerns of sound art and traditional composition techniques, embracing the broader aesthetics of sound and its relationship to environment. She has created works for large-scale and intimate settings that allow for both planned and unplanned compositions to co-exist in live situ. Recent works include 'Poems for Daedalus’ , a series of site-specific performances developed in Athens 2018; the book 'Poems for play', a collection of scores for a Jesuit monastery; 'Accompaniment for Captives’, a performance for two fishing boats; 'Song of Place' (2022) a street opera staged in Bristol suburbia and ‘Sing in the Dark’ (2024) a live vocal performance for acousmonium. O’Dwyer’s work has been informed by her study of the individual idiosycracies found in each pipe-organ and notably her realisation that each individual organ is meticulously tuned to the measurements of the building in which it is housed, allowing it to connect intimately with its surrounding architecture.

Her album Gallarais (2018) was recorded in the shaft of the Brunel tunnel. The shaft itself is 50ft in diameter and 50ft deep with an acoustic decay of three to four seconds. The square window located in the ceiling of the shaft invited a filter of sound from the outside world; trains from 14ft below, overhead planes, and a pump mechanism, all synthesized with her own sonic contributions, becoming part of the shaft’s unified breath. This transformed the tunnels structure into a ‘mystic cave’ and host for transmigrational sound.
https://aineodwyer.bandcamp.com/
https://thequietus.com/.../aine-o-dwyer-gallarais-album.../

Theo Alexander and Qow
'So Afraid to Show I Care originated from a month-long residency at a former glassworks in Prague, live recordings from which have been recycled and processed to create a palimpsest of sonic layers. Both disarming and playful, the album plays out across seven parts, covering tape-recorded ambience, voice note instrumentals, growling double basses, and spoken word. As unabashedly experimental as it is emotional, the album's diverse landscape features Egyptian poet and rapper Otteswed, and parts performed by improvisation veteran Klara Pudlakova. This is the first collaborative outing between Theo Alexander (London, UK) and Qow (Cairo, Egypt), whose works have previously been featured in NPR and the Wire, and supported by Shape+, Britten-Pears Arts, and others. Their previous music has been released by Irsh, Arts & Crafts, Genot Centre, Blank Editions, and more.'
https://thequietus.com/.../interview-qow-and-theo.../

Theo Alexander
London based artist Theo Alexander is a largely self-taught Composer who goes against the grain of tradition exploring what he calls “insurmountable contradictions” this led to the experimentation of putting tape-recorded sound together with live performers, which formed a prevalent part of his performance. The themes often juxtapose each other like manmade and natural, these opposing ideas are brought together in dialogue which Theo describes as “expressing an ongoing act of conciliation that often takes an anxious, playful and ecstatic tone”. Theo has released three albums with Canadian independent label Arts & Crafts, and has been remixed by the likes of Visible Cloaks and Kaitlyn Aurelia-Smith. His ensemble compositions have premiered across Europe and the UK.
https://www.theo-alexander.com/

Qow
Qow, aka Omar El Sadek is an audiovisual artist specialising in electronic sound design and animated visuals. His works focus mainly on documenting the fragile nature of his surroundings, including himself. He takes a similar visual approach, investing in poetic imperfections and unexpected intimacies. This principal appears mostly through his collaborations with artists such as MSYLMA & Ismael, ZULI, Drew Mcdowall, Abadir, KNOW V.A and many others. His works have been previously exhibited at audiovisual festivals such as Unsound Festival 2019, Lunchmeat Festival 2020 and Rewire Festival 2022. His debut album for Genot Centre, Dawafer, was featured in The Wire in 2021.
https://byqow.bandcamp.com/album/elmosameh-sherine

The Shield

The Shield is an audiovisual journey born from the collaboration between sound artist Eugenio Petrarca and visual artist Nicole Oike, as the result of a study on the movement of waves, both visually and acoustically. The performance takes the shape of a 35 minutes immersive experience, where, deprived of spatial or temporal directions and through moments of release and times of visual auditory maximalism, the listener is immersed in a cyclical pilgrimage into the turbulent power of the oceanic archetype and its perpetual ‘becoming’. Through a myriad of overtones, harsh drones, and resonances, through analogue electronics and liquid shape-shifting visual patterns and landscapes, the environment becomes a pulsating body, eliciting the spectator’s distant memories.

Acrartep is the moniker of Eugenio Petrarca, artist, composer and sound designer working in the realm of electronic music. Acrartep is also half and co-founder of the ambient project Ab uno. Acrartep’s artistic exploration primarily focuses on genres such as Ambient, Drone, and Minimalism, where each sound acquires its unique sonic identity through a blend of tones and overtones. His compositions are characterized by extempore arrangements of modular synthesizer patches, featuring long and sustained drones, slow progressions, rhythmic shifts, and repetitions, carrying the listener in an immersive and meditative sonic journey and crafting soundscapes with a ritualistic
approach.
https://linktr.ee/Acrartep

Nicole Oike is a visual artist and filmmaker currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her artistic journey began in the realm of fashion art direction but it was her pursuit of Contemporary Art
studies that sparked her passion for image archiving and art curation, while continuing her master in Film Directing in Los Angeles. As an art director, she specializes in shaping and guiding the creative vision of multidisciplinary projects, collaborating closely with musicians. Nicole Oike presently holds the position of curator at Siilk Gallery, where she takes care of
exhibitions and interviews. Additionally, she has contributed through her research to cinema platforms like Cathode Cinema, curating immersive cinematic experiences.

Song Xin
song xin’s advanced computational practice animates futuristic yet ancient fantasy aesthetics through interactive wearables, installations, and immersive simulations. She has showcased her solo and collaborative work throughout London in venues like IKLECTIK, Fold, and Artsect Gallery, as well as internationally in Berlin, Shanghai, Vicenza, and other cities. Currently based in London, she completed an MA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths and a BFA in Product Design at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.
https://songxin.site/
https://www.instagram.com/songxin.xin/

Siel
Siel is a craftsman and performance maker whose creative practice revolves around developing new meditative performances through ambient sound bath experiences. His music is centered around the saxophone, looped and layered, channelled through reverbs, creating brass soundscapes, evoking foghorns and sirens. He uses circular breathing and arpeggios, giving a sense of eternal loop.

Ruben Sonnoli
Ruben is an Italian key and synth performer, trained as a jazz pianist but fascinated by electronic music, he combines harmonic and melodic material with electronic processing and samples. Ruben has performed in Cafe Oto, IKLECTIK, Goteborg Art Sounds, Electric Brixton, and many more.
https://www.rubensonnoli.com/bio

Host or Publisher Boundary Condition