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We are delighted to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective has been commissioned by Ramsgate Festival of Sound to make a new sound piece called 'Overland Undersea'. We will be using field recordings taken around the area to create an immersive sound experience for the festival. The dates of the festival are 27 August - 05 September. We will share more about our sound piece soon.
A 15th century guidebook on constructing volvelles
We are thrilled to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective have been commissioned to create a sound piece for the upcoming Bodleian Library exhibition titled ‘Sensational Books’. In 2020, Pale Blue Dot Collective was selected to visit the libraries and view some of the incredible collection. We were then invited to submit an idea for a commission which we will share more about soon.
We will be exploring a series of historical texts as well as recording sounds in the libraries.
‘Professor Emma Smith, University of Oxford and Kathryn Rudy, an art historian, medievalist and weaver based at the University of St Andrews are exploring encounters with the book beyond reading. Fusion Arts is collaborating with the Bodleian Libraries to work with artists to explore the book as an object engaging senses beyond sight in the exhibition room and explore the sonic qualities of library material.
The Sensational Books project explores the book as an object: the materials used, the sizing and shaping, the interpretation and experimentation of format, evoking the people and the spaces connected to the life of a book, including the relationship between the digital and the physical.
Following a workshop at the Weston Library, artists were invited to submit proposals that respond sonically to the exhibits and reveal aspects of the immersive experience of the book. These artworks will form part of the Weston Library’s Exhibition Sensational Books.’
I am thrilled to be on the panel at the Always Possible Architecture & Environment: Reinventing the City talk on 11 June.
The event will be a roundtable discussion with some of the most exciting new and established designers, artists and planners in Kent - exploring a better future for our urban landscapes.
This one day summit is part of South East Creatives, delivered by always possible in collaboration with Kent County Council.
See full programme at www.alwayspossible.co.uk/design
I am really excited to share that I have recently purchased a second hand Toyo CX45 mono rail camera. Learning how to use this camera is part of my Arts Council England DYCP project. I am really excited to learn how to use it both inside and outside of the studio!
I am thrilled to share that I am now an Advisory Board Member of both SVOX.TV and Sculptorvox - two amazing projects by Daniel Hawley-Lingham.
SVOX.TV is a new online platform for sharing film and video art which already has an incredible collection to explore, alongside artist interviews.
Sculptorvox is a limited edition print run publication. The 8 volume series goes beyond seeing sculpture as 'object' and delves into the world, work, inspiration, processes, influences, ideas, journeys and careers of artists, writers, photographers who all work directly or indirectly with notions of three dimensions. The first three volumes can be found on the website, and are titled Geometry of Nothing, Blood & Wire and A God Complex The images in this post are from A God Complex.
I am really excited about the future of both projects.
Sign up to my new newsletter for updates about commissions, exhibitions, events, opportunities and print of the month!
You can sign up here.
super/collider co-directors Melanie King and Louise Beer have contributed to Energy Systems, a publication by Well Projects, Margate.
Across 150 monochromatic pages, Energy Systems explores the systems that dominate global infrastructure and the consequences of connectivism under late capitalism; probing correlations between the worldwide drive for connectivity and the emergence of severe environmental rifts.
Reflecting on recent ecological shifts at both local and global scales, Energy Systems explores the systems that dominate global infrastructure and the consequences of connectivism under late capitalism; probing correlations between the worldwide drive for connectivity and the emergence of severe environmental rifts.
Energy Systems seeks to find ways of replacing ‘network’ orientated capital accumulation and socio environmental exploitation with ‘metabolisms’ which are orientated toward reciprocal models of coexistence. Through newly commissioned and existing text works by 19 artists and academics, Energy Systems explores a new architecture of values and begins to build stepping stones toward addressing the systemic alienation of the environment.
Energy Systems is released as part of Well Project’s 2020 exhibition programme of the same name. You can find more information on the Well Projects website.
Energy Systems features contributions from Verity Birt, Dimitrios Bormpoudakis, Louise Beer, Milo Creese, Joachim Coucke, Kyriaki Costa, Hector Campbell, Jack Clarke, Sophie Dyer, Sasha Englemann, Billy Fraser, Nicolette Clara Illes, Melanie King, Kris Lock, Ruth Pilston, Lou Lou Sainsbury, Tom Sewell, Sissel Marie Tonn & Rosie Grace Ward.
Pale Blue Dot Collective are pleased to share that we have been selected for the @themargateschool Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021. We will be working on our project titled 'Floating in Space'.
Pale Blue Dot Collective will create a series of images depicting how solitary beings are all connected, using images of under the water surface shot in Walpole Bay, and the night sky shot in Margate and Minster.
We will create a photographic folio that examines the parallels between floating in the ocean and Earth moving through our solar system. The work will be contemplative in nature, as we investigate the giant landscape of the sea-life and plant-life that lives in Walpole Bay, removing our human-centric scale, to the glittering dark skies of Margate. We will invite the viewer to imagine how we fit into our ecosystem, and how our ecosystem fits into the cosmos. This work will explore the fragile nature of our coastal area. For some, the virus has been an incredibly isolating experience. This work will show the connection between all of us, as we stand and gaze over the horizon, or towards our galaxy.
Alongside this photographic work, we will create a soundscape using a hydrophone to record the movement of the waves and sound recorders for life above the waterline. We will also record the movement of the trees that we view the stars through at our studio in Minster.
The residency will allow us to use the darkroom facilities at the Margate School for eight weeks. Read more about The Margate School here.
We are thrilled to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective has been interviewed on SVOX.TV, an amazing new platform for film and video arts.
Read the full interview here.
SVOX.TV is curated by Daniel Hawley-Lingham. Have a look around the wonderful collection of artists films!
I am thrilled to announce that I have been granted an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice grant for £8893.00.
This grant will transform my practice through mentoring from three esteemed mentors, including a curator. an art critic, and a photographer. This grant will allow me to have a focused period of six months in my studio where I will be creating large scale prints of installation work.
I will be sharing more news of this project in the coming weeks. Thank you Arts Council England!
I am delighted to share details of my new print, A Memory of Darkness, to celebrate my event of the same title and my UK Associateship at the Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation.
This print is an edition of 10 and is printed on Kodak Metallic paper. The visible night sky in this image was taken at Hinewai Reserve in Aotearoa New Zealand whilst I was on a Pale Blue Dot residency at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, Aotearoa New Zealand.
You can find out more here.
A Memory of Darkness, Louise Beer, 2020
I am so pleased to announce the culmination of my experimentation and research as a UK associate artist at Delfina Foundation as part of the thematic programme science_technology_society, in partnership with Gaia Art Foundation.
‘Join artist Louise Beer and participate in a live, collective listening and contemplation of the night sky and our connection to it.
As the sun sets over the enormous volcanic landscape of the remote Hinewai Reserve in Aotearoa New Zealand, the sky begins to reveal an infinite display of stars and planets, appearing like heavy lights against a pitch-black sky.
As a result of light pollution, many of us across the globe have lost our night-time view of the Milky Way, which can have a philosophical impact on the way we see our ecosystems. When we can no longer look outwards and see our galaxy, we lose a sense of the scale of the emptiness, the expanse of the darkness, and by contrast, the sheer magnificence and fragility of our natural world.
The short live broadcast, A Memory of Darkness, comprises a sonic piece created using field recordings of bird song from Louise’s recent experience at Hinewai Reserve, in her native Aotearoa New Zealand. Alone, looking outwards over the Pacific Ocean, as the warm breeze rustled the native trees nearby and the Rurus (Morepork owls) sang out into the night, the artist experienced overwhelming feelings of both wonderment and environmental grief in equal measure.
The artist invites participants from across the world – who will receive instructions by post – to join her at 19:00 GMT on 17 December to collectively listen to this new sound piece and recall our own memory of the darkness, considering its significance. The field recordings in this piece were made during Louise’s recent residency at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora.’
To Book
To participate, please register, providing your postal address, on Eventbrite using the link below. You will then be sent a package by post containing instructions on how to listen to the 20 minute-live broadcast at 19:00GMT on Thursday 17 December 2020.
Due to the limited places available and the cost of postage, we ask you to refrain from signing up unless you are certain you will be able to attend the event.
There are a set number of places available for different postal zones. If you have any questions please email us at guestlist@delfinafoundation.com.
Pale Blue Dot’s film Under the Fading Light has been featured on SVOX.TV, a new online gallery of artists films.
A still from my filming in Hastings, Aotearoa New Zealand
A commission by Lumen Studios, funded by Arts Council England Coronavirus Emergency Grant. The film was edited by John Hooper.
Lumen Studios have commissioned artists from all over the globe to create a time-lapse of the night sky. Artists filmed a time lapse of the night sky safely from their back yard, garden or isolated park. Looking up at the sky is a shared experience, and is an act that connects us to our distant ancestors as they would have seen a similar view. Due to the constellations differing depending on our position in the Northern and Southern hemisphere, we see the night sky from slightly different angles. By combining the views of the stars together in one video, we get a feeling of the Earth spinning through space from a range of vantage points. As a result, the video seems both disorientating and dizzying. During these times of coronavirus, we may feel as though we are not able to explore the landscape as we usually would. Instead, we hope that viewers may be encouraged to explore the universe above their head from their immediate surroundings. There are many things to be seen by looking up, and it helps us to connect to others that may be enjoying the view at the same time.
Commissioned Artists
Aki Poon (Hong Kong)
Aleks Borys (Poland)
Andreas Olesen (Denmark)
Ashwin Ezhumalai (India)
Dorothy Cheung (Hong Kong)
Yukako Tanaka (Japan)
Esther Hanko (The Netherlands)
Elody Libe (Montreal)
Gil Zablodovsky (Tel Aviv)
Jaz Morrison (England)
Jenny Akerlund (Sweden)
Joe Patrick Shellard (Scotland)
Karolin Schwab (Germany)
Louise Beer (New Zealand)
Nenad Nedeljkov (Serbia)
Pauline Woolley (England)
Roman Gaditskiy (Russia)
Thomas Lord (New Zealand)
The online catalogue for the incredible exhibition, ‘The Complete Entanglement of Everything’ at Ōtepoti Dunedin School of Art, Aotearoa New Zealand, is now available online:
Exhibition Essay
Exhibition Catalogue
Exhibition Images
Image by Jodie Gibson.
Pale Blue Dot Collective (Louise Beer + John Hooper) have been included in the upcoming VOID Collective exhibition, The New Black.
We will be showing our film, Under the Fading Light.
“There is a thread that runs through the THE NEW BLACK, which has to do with what in a human life can be turned into a story, and what can’t. What is susceptible to some forms of symbolisation and narrativisation, and what isn’t? And what do people do with what can’t be taken up into a story? And what rules, methods, practices do people adopt to deal with those residues, those remainders?” Darian Leader
The exhibition will be available to view online via the Void Collective website from 27 October. With thanks to Jacob Weeks and Rachel Letchford for including our piece.
I am delighted to have had my work featured on the Artists of Meraki website. You can see the blog post here. Artists of Meraki is a new independent, artist-led contemporary arts publication, based in London and Milan.
Pale Blue Dot Collective are delighted to have been included in the exhibition ‘The Complete Entanglement of Everything’ at Dunedin School of Art, Aotearoa New Zealand, with a wonderful selection of artists.
This is very special for many reasons, but particularly because I lived in Dunedin until 2002.
‘The complete entanglement of everything is a reflection on how this changing environment
feels and is understood by artists, primarily from Ötepoti. Donna Haraway sees this period as the Chthulucene, thinking of underground spiders, and of underlying connections. She uses the term ‘entanglement’ to help us to imagine different futures, where species might have more to do with one another, and where new engagements might offer new moralities.The Anthropocene is irreversible but might be mitigated if we humans change the ways we generate and use energy, the waste we produce, and the ways we share resources. It is a time for a new approach to caring for the non-human world, and a time to draw on the Indigenous thinking that still places kaitiakitaka, care for the world’s resources, at the centre of cultural activity. It is a time for mourning, and a time to pay attention to the non-human entities both living and inorganic that have been ignored as being irrelevant to human flourishing, but on which we depend entirely.’
Read more about the exhibition here.
To celebrate our inclusion in the group show, we have created a print made using the original photographs used to create the film. The print signifies a moment where both the New Zealand and the UK night skies are visible.
The show runs from Monday, September 28, 2020 to Friday, October 2, 2020 and more information can be found here.
The exhibition accompanies the Mapping the Anthropocene in Ōtepoti/Dunedin Symposium.
I am delighted to share that I have been selected for the Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation UK Associateship - science_technology_society. This 3 month residency will give me the opportunity to extend my research into the impact of light pollution on the biological world, and how it changes our view of our place within the universe. I will be working with two other wonderful artists, Sonya Dyer and Anna Ridler. The residency runs from October - December. You can read see my profile here and read about the programme here. Towards the end of the residency I will be presenting an event at the Delfina Foundation, which I will share closer to the time.
