Noisy Spaces - workshop by Kat Macdonald

Contrasting (but not contesting) Mark Fishers analysis of the modern device as a "portal to cyberspace", Kat's work looks to interact with questions of physical embodiment as it relates to technology. Using it as a lens through which to explore political and personal agencies within spaces, sounds and actions.

During the workshop, she'll be exploring technology as it relates to collective sound making, taking students through a history of London's experimental collective performance scene of the 1970's and how those methods can be adapted and applied to our current art culture. Through this lens, she'll be situating and deconstructing the laptop as a tool for collective performance, looking at a relationship with the device that has us looking outwards rather than inwards.

Kat works with sound, digital visuals, the web, sculptural work, choreography, scoring and performance, in addition to site-specific installations. Her work has been shown at festivals such as DRNA, Intimidades Públicas, ICNOVA, TWT and more. Her current practice explores our engagements with space, both public and private, looking at the ways in which privatisation has affected our capacity for self-expression and protest. She runs the London Community Laptop Orchestra, an all-abilities, community-organised laptop orchestra, inspired by groups such as the 1969 - 1974 Scratch Orchestra, with a focus on guerrilla performances, using the laptop as a tool for collective creative engagement.

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This event is part of the Phreaking Collective exhibition programme, Does Cloud Compute (ever) Precipitate? This show explores the hidden infrastructures that shape our lives, bringing materiality to the ethereal. It explores our relationship with the monoliths that are waking up, the environmental strain, the invisible human labour, and the worries of pooled resources in an unreturning atmosphere. Working across installations, sound works, generative systems and computational artwork, the exhibition examines the quiet romance in technological convenience.

The Cloud, an unseen network of servers, energy and labour - is made tangible, visible and audible. The works confront the vast systems that silently maintain our lives, datacenters that feed on our energy and attention and the dependent relationship we have, the systems behind each upload, generation and stream.

Running alongside the two-week show is a series of talks, workshops, discussions, film screenings and performances where visitors are invited to look deeper into the unsung systems shaping our lives, and reflect on the strange romance and hidden dependencies that define our connection to the cloud.

Show opens: 10th - 25th Jan 2026, 10:00 - 17:00

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Host or Publisher Phreaking Collective