Wednesday 8 March 2023, 8pm
Hannan Jones and Shamica Ruddock are a quantum noise improvisation duo. Together, they shared a basement studio, dubbed The Beats Kitchen. The Beats Kitchen fuelled conversation, joy, and was energised by practice, rituals and friendship. It hosted curiosity and their passion for speculating through experimental sound, film, electronic and analog music equipment, archives and futurisms, sonic fictions, and world-building. Artists in their own righte, they found commonalities in their practices by way of sonic improvisation. Engaging with futures and histories, exploring, improvising, and reflecting on themselves as diaspora subjects with divergent colonial histories meeting in the auditory sphere. Performatively, they are spatiotemporal cartographers and this process is one of self-acceptance and alternative arrivals.
Their ongoing process is called ‘Re-Imagining In-Conversation’ a performative exploration of the in-conversation format that extends a multiplicity of identified overlapping and diverging themes through sonic and visual improvisation. So far, this has been realised through an audio-visual essay commissioned by CCA Annex and live sharings as part of Counterflows 2022. In the peak of summer 2021 Hannan and Shamica invited the prolific polymath Pat Thomas as a mentor into their inquiries during an A/C Projects' and CCA residency, opening up worlds of joy and rigour. Thomas’ interpretation and acknowledgment of the Arabic word for touch, “Jass” pronounced jass and written ّجسَ . alongside the translation of “jam” from Arabic as gatherings has been instrumental in grounding their approach. Now, Hannan Jones, Pat Thomas, and Shamica Ruddock meet to explore jazz, improvisation, and electronics together as a trio.
Hannan Jones is an artist of Algerian and Welsh origin raised on Binjareb Noongar Boodja, Western Australia. Research-led and practicing at the intersections of moving-image, sculpture and sound Hannan deep dives into concepts of hybridity, language, and rhythms that are associated with cultural and social migration, and psychogeography. Sonically, Hannan explores through improvisation, electronics, music concrete, and analogue recordings. Using samples and layering of audio material to create alternate possibilities, reclaims parallel histories, and reimagine connections between them.
Previous presentations include David Dale Gallery x Clyde Build Radio; CCA Annex; Edinburgh Art Festival; New Radicalisms, Rotterdam; Tate Lates, London and REWIRE, The Hague and La Chunky, Glasgow. Under the ongoing project 'Re-Imagining in Conversation,' in collaboration with frequent partner Shamica Ruddock, performances have been held at Oscillation Q‑O2, Counterflows, Future Soundscapes in Berlin, Archive Sites at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, and Cafe Oto in London. Hannan is a 2023 Oram Award winner and also a 2024-25 Wysing Arts Centre Resident.
Shamica Ruddock is an artist working with sound and moving image. Previous presentations include festivals Margate Now (UK), Abandon Normal Devices (UK); group shows with the Barbican (UK), Durham Gallery (CA) and live performances at Silent Green (DE) and Madeira Dig (PT) alongside long time collaborator Hannan Jones. Solo shows also include Treasure Hill Artist Village (2019, TW) and South London Gallery (2022, UK). Shamica has held residencies with QO2 (BE), and was previously an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library researching Maroon sound cultures.
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." - The Jazzmann
Ain Bailey is an artist, composer and DJ. Her compositions encompass field recordings and found sounds and are often inspired by reflections on silence and absence, feminist activism and architectural acoustics. She has developed numerous collaborations with performance, sonic and visual artists, creating multichannel and mixed media installations and soundtracks for moving image, live performance and dance. Her practice explores sonic autobiographies and the constellation of sounds that form individual and community identities.
Previous work includes Oh Adelaide, a collaboration with artist Sonia Boyce (Tate Britain, the Whitechapel Gallery, The Kitchen, New York); The Range (Eastside Projects, Birmingham; And We’ll Always Be A Disco In The Glow Of Love (Cubitt Gallery, London); Remember To Exhale created with Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski (Studio Voltaire, London as part of their Desperate Living programme). Version (Wysing Arts Centre); Atlantic Railton, within architect Sumayya Vally’s 2021 Serpentine Pavillion and as part of the Listening To The City sound installation programme; Untitled: (Our Wedding) (CCS Bard, NYC) and Trioesque (Bruckenmusik Festival, Cologne).
Edward George is a writer and broadcaster. Founder of Black Audio Film Collective, George wrote and presented the ground-breaking science fiction documentary Last Angel of History (1996). George is part of the multimedia duo Flow Motion, and the electronic music group Hallucinator. He and hosts Sound of Music (Threads Radio), Kuduro – Electronic Music of Angola (Counterflows). George’s series The Strangeness of Dub (Morley Radio) dives into reggae, dub, versions and versioning, drawing on critical theory, social history, and a deep and a wide cross-genre musical selection. Edward George lives and works in London.
