Lama Dalai
Brighton’s Johannah Henderson and Duncan Harrison produce work in spheres of musical, performance and visual practice, translating single concepts into structures of events and systems where liminal stages between composition, improvisation and chance can be explored and presented as tangible, realised works. The exact form and content of each piece varies radically, however past works have incorporated deconstructed texts, home built instrumentation, field recording and visual scores.
Active within various fields of sonic and visual arts for a number of years, the pair have received accolades for their works both independently and within Lama Dalai. In addition, Henderson has published lyrical contributions to several albums by Norwegian experimental metal group Virus. Interview and performance footage of both Henderson and Harrison was featured on the Finnish television show Neo, which explored the underground noise/experimental scene in the north of England.
‘Brighton resident Duncan Harrison’s work often consists of dense tape collage, carefully timed squeaking and scraping of amplified quotidian junk, sporadic vocal gurgle and icy feedback tones combined with a real flare for captivating performance. One of UK undergrounds most entertaining, and more importantly, best sounding live acts going.’ – Press info from Crater Lake Festival (2013).
‘Its not everyday I get to come across a talent at such an early stage of development. I feel as if I’m at the beginning with Johannah egging her on to produce more quality work but even if she never releases another thing she’ll have left us with these enigmatic jewels’ – Idwal Fisher on Henderson’s Amniotic project.
Lama Dalai will be presenting a durational exhibition of textual, graphic and visual scores documenting sonic happenings at the Church of Chaos – snippets of conversation, environmental sonics, fragments of performances and so on. They will be displayed in, on and around the tent as they are made, creating both an accumulative exhibition and expanding decoration of the area. These scores will provide not only a visual document of our aural experiences but also a form of documentation that may be used after the festival’s end. We anticipate this may become a participatory event, unspecified by us, but an experiment nevertheless, as attendees may begin to add their personal contributions. Thus, many other forms of visual documentation (photographs, sculpture etc.) may crop up. At present we envisage the scores to be drawn onto paper in varying sizes and safely secured to the tent. The scores will remain the property of Lama Dalai, however, we would also encourage their use in either a group performance (at the end of the festival) or in documentation surrounding a festival report.