From the 8th-15th July, The Masha Hari Theatre at The Mandrake Hotel in Fitzrovia was transformed into a sonic canvas for composer, performer and audiovisual artist, HforSpirit. Images by Nick Hadfield.
The body of work, currently titled Journey To The Centre Of The Sun, is the first phase of a greater multimedia project that explores the philosophical, historical and architectural complexities of the labyrinth. Over the course of the week, H assembled the latest iteration of the non-obligatory jam circle Scratchproof Orchestra and its talented participants, Curtly Thomas, Bianca Scout, Magnus Westwell, Nathan Coen and Kenichi Iwasa for a series of improvised performances excavating the speculative music of this structure in its infinitely branching forms. Scratchproof Orchestra recorded their work as a temporary ensemble, partnering with tech collective Equa.ls who released the work for one night only on Saturday, 13th July via their new app.
In the spirit of encouraging collaborative learning and discussion, The Mandrake invited guests to a special presentation of Journey To The Centre Of The Sun to engage in guided conversation with the artist as the residency week came to a close. Also in attendance was Residency Curator Maguelone Marcenac, and Contributing Editor of Fact Magazine Henry Bruce Jones, a writer who has worked closely with H over the course of their practice. As an art education consultancy to The Mandrake, we mediated the discussion. The floor was open for guests to ask questions, spark debate, and find inspiration from unique perspectives.
[The Conversation, Masha Hari Theatre, Thursday, 11th July, 9:00pm]
Kate Fensterstock (Artscope): Thank you to everyone for joining us this evening for a presentation of Journey To The Centre Of The Sun from Artist in Residence HforSpirit. The Mandrake Hotel is focused on facilitating open lines of communication, nurturing creative curiosity, and fostering new modes of expression that sustain the lifecycle of great artworks. In acknowledging the goals and intentions of this space this evening, I think the best place to start is to first open up the floor to our guests’ initial reactions about the project and the performance, inviting any questions they may have.
Guest A (to HforSpirit): What was your source of inspiration in formulating, composing and developing this body of work, and what kept driving things forward?
HforSpirit: I would say the work itself is a sort of self-composed piece, like an ecosystem. I see music as a form of alchemy. You take the raw elements and throw them together to start a big bang. None of the music was composed in the traditional sense prior to the performance. There was a lot of bigger picture stuff we were talking about beforehand - about wanting to chart the extremes of the human condition through a kind of ritual transgression. Intuitively the performance became a kind of collective moment with a ceremonial rhythm - feeding back into itself in waves. A multi-sensory experience with light and sound. This is the basis of the Scratchproof Orchestra project and how it functions - as a symbiotic exchange between the artist and audience. It’s really easy to get lost in these conversations, down rabbit holes of endless intellectualisation, but I also think it’s important to hammer out robust concepts if you’re interested in collapsing the limits of any art form. ‘The labyrinth’ and ‘the void’ are mammoth ideas at the surface but after some discussion they provided us with the essential architecture to transgress beyond the realms of a normal performance.
Artscope: We’re grateful to be joined by Henry Bruce Jones who can offer a special perspective on this formula, as he has known H for several years and has witnessed development from core incubation through the evolutionary phases of many residencies, especially in the context of Thee Birth at The White Hotel in Manchester. On its own, it was a project that was very integral to the bigger picture and Henry, it would be great to hear from your point of view?
Henry Bruce Jones: Scratchproof was actually born from that residency, Thee Birth, at The White Hotel. Getting to the labyrinth felt like something we had been working towards once H had had the first few Scratchproof sessions, and it felt like a clear example of how ritual was working in a contemporary setting. More specifically, how easily ritual can be applied and how useful it is. How ritual can be a symbolic act, how the space of ritual is actually a performance, and thus ritual can be considered to be ‘an embodied expression’. What has been very nice about this residency, in a different place with a different architecture, is that this feels like a continuation. To me it feels like something we have arrived at.
HforSpirit: It feels like we have been sharpening the tool of what a ritual can be, outside of the paradigm of religious systems or romantic ideas about paganism.
Henry Bruce Jones: It’s like ritual without theology, in a certain sense, asking what is the practical space of ritual, what is the function of it, and how does it work socially.
Artscope: Can you put into context for our guests tonight what Thee Birth was like and what happened - so we can put some of the theory to use?
Henry Bruce Jones: As I understand it, it was very different every time! The most relevant iteration however, did feel like a prelude to these ideas and experiences we’ve since had during this residency.
HforSpirit: I don’t know why, but I decided to save the settings on my amplifier as ‘Circus’ . The last Thee Birth had a very Carnival energy - with Chadd Curry’s now legendary “I am that I am” performance alongside DJ theatre from Two Shell, live film scores from Charlie Osborne, a brass band, World Peace DMT and balloon puppetry. It was a naively beautiful and absurd playground for people to puppet their most authentic selves into being. Curtly Thomas, one of our participants tonight, also devotes a large part of his practice to aspects of Carnival, the symbols behind the masquerade and the way different ‘totems’ are embodied. Also through tarot, for example, or early polytheistic religions, you find a pantheon of human life - I believe this playground is where we reach our fullest potential. Although we had this very expansive architecture to work with in the labyrinth, there were all of these incremental states between the extremes to explore.
Artscope (to HforSpirit): The ‘incremental states’ you describe are super interesting. We hosted Magnus Westwell as our most recent Artist in Residence and together we discussed at length the notion of deconstruction in art practice in order to seek specific truths, or at the very least, for the purpose of investigation. Would you agree that these incremental states are part of this type of approach and if so, how does deconstruction play a part in your practice?
HforSpirit: I like to boil everything down as much as possible. We live in such a contained society, that we cannot see its raw and subtle beauty without dissociating to some degree. I don’t mean to break the system in a ‘punk’ kind of way, it’s more that from an internal frame of reference we have the opportunity to let the words go and breathe a deeper self into being - through music, through movement.
Guest B: As a native Brazilian, I love the Carnival tradition, and wanted to add to these theories. It is a very visual experience, by nature of being a parade. But the thing that we anticipate and most look forward to is the drumming, and the participants that come out with the beats, this is the most important part of the parade, in a way. Just like how you have explained that getting rid of societal expectations and boiling it all down, the beats of Carnival are left and get deep into your body. Ultimately, no matter how people come to Carnival, perhaps inspired by the visual, it is through the beat that we connect, we unite. We end up vibrating on the same frequency.
HforSpirit: At points we were making this huge cacophony, free from any conventional form - feeling totally atomised. And out of nowhere someone finds a new gesture and we start again, slowly coalescing to find a rhythm. Before it all boils down again. Waves of distillation, of us finding ourselves, coming together for a moment and falling apart that felt like a kind of purging, a collective healing.
Guest #3: I am from Sicily and we also love Carnival, and in our tradition we have these totems that embody different versions or different characteristics of the human psyche. In Sicilian tradition, we choose to closely embody these personifications throughout the duration of the celebration. I was wondering if at any point you would assign a certain characteristic to a certain instrument, or found it to play a special sort of role within the dynamic of the group?
HforSpirit: I mapped out a version of how the music might play out, a kind of episodic journey through the labyrinth. But in the moment it wasn’t necessary, as everyone naturally finds their own role or multiple roles within the composition at different points. We did draw a tarot card before we started - the Man of Poetry trying to control the void in order to justify the ways of God to men. So instead of seeking to measure the void I suggested we excavate our inner darkness in search of bliss. To find a balance of light and dark.
Henry Bruce Jones: “Justifying the ways of God to men” is the definition of music, in a sense.
Artscope : The question of direction and control in this process, and the degree to which the results yield naturally, or take shape based on your decision-making, sound a lot like the role of a curator, and the relationship dynamics with the artist and the viewer that need to be carefully navigated. I’d like to hear from Maguelone Marcenac, who first launched and continues to direct The Mandrake’s Artist in Residency Programme. She invited HforSpirit to be a part of this initiative and has worked tirelessly with them and their team to bring the concept to fruition. Mag, firstly could you share for us how the project with H came to be?
Mag: I recently (re)discovered H through their track "Honest Labour" with the Manchester duo, Space Afrika. Our paths first crossed several years ago when H was instrumental in launching Fold, a ground-breaking London techno club. I admired how they seamlessly blend classical music training with contemporary sonic exploration. Our connection was rekindled over an event celebrating our previous Artist in Residence, Magnus Westwell, and we decided the time was ripe for a collaboration. The performative and immersive nature of H's work aligns perfectly with The Mandrake’s production traditions, making this partnership an exciting project.
Artscope: Achieving this ‘alignment’ is critical as a curator, and I suppose is another way of describing the relationship dynamics between viewers and the artist’s work that we surfaced just a minute ago. In your role, what have you observed to be the catalysts for making progress as you define it, or more specifically what influences your behaviour as you work toward those goals?
Mag: I think it starts with a focus on how to successfully bring the work to a different type of audience who are viewing art in a hotel context, not in a gallery or a museum. The hotel and leisure lifestyle is inherently more immersive, and at The Mandrake, we specifically encourage experimentation and taking this more ‘involved’ experience a step further where possible to challenge the status quo and make new discoveries. What then stands out to me is what the reaction of these guests are in this rarefied context, because my job is then to listen and learn from it, so I am able to make a decision that helps everyone understand and appreciate the work as close to its true intention as possible. I see this as very similar to Carnival or to Scratchproof, the collective experience by definition, but through different channels. I do find the outcome of the experience is dependent on the collective it is touching.
Guest C: I can’t help but wonder how much you set out to push people, at the risk of alienating them completely, and if you do, what happens after that?
Mag: I set out with faith in our visitors to accept the invitation to engage with the experimental concepts and challenging works I curate. If then, they choose to remove themselves, my focus shifts to those people who remain, who join in the shared frequency as a result of immersion, experimentation and ultimately navigating the less familiar. In my work with musicians, I have witnessed how creating and performing equally immerses them in this shared energy, linking them with the audience in a dynamic feedback loop, conducting the soon to be shared memory. This exchange deepens the collective experience, highlighting our fundamental human connection. Music serves as a pathway to feel the vibrations that unite us, transcending cultural barriers and fostering a profound sense of unity and shared consciousness. And it’s because of the people who remain in the room and make this link with the musicians that I feel there is potential to grow awareness of this and support the artist. In turn, it also helps reinforce The Mandrake as a destination for where this happens.
Guest D: I had a more technical question about the work, and that is about the light, and whether it was designed in response to the sound that was played? I found myself trying to understand whether there was any sort of reactive pattern, mirroring the tones or scales, or taking on any sort of behavioural pattern?
HforSpirit : Emma, what do you think? Emma Gasson is our light specialist supporting this project.
Emma Gasson: The only brief to me ahead of time was to not to set anything up in advance. It was super important to play along in the same way that the orchestra was playing along. Even though my medium is light and the others are sound, we were still sharing the same space and the same collective experience that was based on our own modes of expression coming together. And it’s something working in light that we rarely get to do, so I was grateful for the opportunity.
HforSpirit: Some people are way outside of their comfort zone when given the scope to do what they want, but Emma absolutely rose to the occasion. The initial brief was to transition slowly between two extremes. A state of utter chaos and the void, where I could best describe chaos as an electrical storm and the void as daybreak - when the sun first appears over a misty horizon and exudes its warmth. But in the end it didn’t make sense to be so programmatic, and we chose to use those colours more spontaneously across the whole.
Guest E: And did the sound respond to the light as well in return?
HforSpirit: I think we were all responding to each other, at no point was it ever particularly conscious, but response is definitely a core component of the collective experience.
Artscope : Haze and how it engages with light was also an important creative decision for you.
HforSpirit: I’m reminded of when Magnus designed the craziest lighting rig I have ever seen for the stage! (everyone laughs). Basically, they asked the guys at Sadler’s Wells to configure it the wrong way, so that it sort of swung backward and pointed diagonally across the stage, with the lights running sideways through the smoke, it was insane!
Artscope: All those aspects end up generating their own sculptural forms and unique art objects, the way the strobe reflects onto the back of your eyeballs, and the haze distorts the musicians’ bodies. You can’t ignore how it all contributes to what the work becomes, and what effect this has on our natural instinct to react sensorily and perhaps tap into new ways of feeling.
Guest F: I wanted to make an observation about the spectrum between darkness and light. The title Journey To The Centre Of The Sun is a complicated one that suggests heading toward the light is purposeless or even doomed, as the Icarus myth teaches us. Can you explain the title for us and more about its meaning?
HforSpirit: I liked how the title alluded to the naivety in believing a journey to the centre of the sun was even possible. It has a ‘steampunk hubris’ feeling about it. But research also suggests that the labyrinth was designed to reflect the movement of the sun’s light and the oscillating cosmic orbits, which are infinite, in the same way the pathways designed in the labyrinth are meant to lead back on themselves, entrapping the traveller forever. Overall, there is a recurring theme around the Ego and the obsession with dominating the void which is in itself a doomed ideal. It is what happens within the void, within the collective experience, that actually matters.
For more information on HforSpirit, or The Mandrkae Hotel's Artist in Residence programme, please email kate@artscopeintl.com.
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