HEARth

HEARth is a production conceived and curated by me and my friend Stavroula Kounadea. Known informally to our mates as Stav and Felix, we are producing HEARth under our shared moniker, STELIX. Turbaned and clad in denim factory uniforms, we have set ourselves the practical task of making the annual Audiograft soundart festival of Oxford Brookes University extra-specially fun in 2013.

In our experience of being artists and of traveling to work at organised cultural events, we have found that sometimes the most memorable things happen while waiting in the queue for coffee, wandering about looking for a place that sells batteries, or trailing to the pub with a load of people after a concert. We wanted to celebrate these extra-curricular festival moments. Also, since both of us are obsessed with embedding ART in daily life, we wanted to develop activities that would connect the works showcased at Audiograft with everyday things like reading a book or going to the shops to buy some bread.

Searching for sonic descriptions in books held at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford

Finally and perhaps most practically, we wanted to make sure everyone participating in the festival would have opportunities to eat good food, drink fine wine, and have a plain old good time.

Stav consults the winelist in The Kings Arms pub, Oxford

Through talking about fun, the need to play, and the importance of sitting down to eat with other artists, the HEARth programme was born. It’s a programme that celebrates listening, playing, friendship and hospitality, mixing the sonic with the social, and offering a warm welcome to artists and audiences alike.

HEARth – a sort of visual manifesto of ideas

Presenting pre-event activities and after-event socials relating to the main Audiograft programme, we shall guide audiences and artists between venues by the most sonically interesting routes, as well as providing our personal guide to Oxford, which details where to get a nice cup of coffee and where to find emergency electronic components at the last minute. We have even provided some field-recordings so that visiting artists can hear the wonderful soundscapes we will enjoy during Audiograft before traveling to Oxford.

The HEARth guide to Oxford covers all the essentials!

We really hope you’ll come and join us during Audiograft for our sonic salad making performance (after Alison Knowles), book club, evening buffet, guided tour of Audiograft exhibits, soundwalks, pub quiz, badge and bunting-making events, and Audiograft after-party. We don’t have any spare turbans but you can always borrow one of our signature gingham aprons!

Modern Art Oxford are lending us their art-trolley for the production of SONIC BUNTING, SOUND FX BADGES, and other assorted fun! We are terribly excited about the art trolley…

At the launch of the Audiograft festival, the HEARth programme will commence with a STELIX cover of Alison Knowles’s 1962 Fluxus Score “#2 Proposition: Make a salad“. Generating both sounds and food, this builds on Fluxus covers shown at Audiograft in previous years as well as providing tasty fare for hungry audiences!

event page on SARU website

During the day, an informal book club exploring sound and text will take place at Blackwell’s Bookshop, in keeping with the “Word Events” theme of the Audiograft Concert at the Holywell Music Room later that evening.

Prior to the Concert at the Holywell there will also be a buffet for Audiograft artists and friends in the function room at the nearby King’s Arms Pub.

event page on SARU website

On Friday, HEARth will offer a tour of the artworks on show in the Richard Hamilton Building, followed by a choice of soundwalks themed around the works of Audiograft artists Kathy Hinde and James Saunders.

In the evening, HEARth will provide a pre-concert pub quiz. Bring your sense of play and a readiness to explore the wonderful world of soundart! We promise this quiz will be unlike any you’ve experienced before, taking a funny and curious approach to sounds and listening.
event pages at Modern Art Oxford

On Saturday at Modern Art Oxford, the HEARth programme will include opportunities to make your own sound-FX badges and to participate in a range of fun, interactive listening activities. You will also be able to document your impressions of the artwork shown at MAO in conjunction with Audiograft via some innovative STELIX stationery.

event pages at Modern Art Oxford

The HEARth programme will culminate in the all-important after-party at The Jam Factory (which in fact never made jam, but only marmalade – true Oxford factoid). Bring your favourite obscure and relaxing vinyl or field-recordings for our DIY DJ set, (all of us are the DJs for this event) and settle into the comfy sofas with wine and hot chocolate and a chance to catch up with everyone.

event page on SARU website

Join us at The Jam Factory, 10.30pm onwards, Saturday 2nd March, for the Audiograft after-party! Bring obscure vintage vinyl to feature in the DIY DJ Disco

About STELIX

STELIX is an art duo comprised of us – Felicity Ford (colloquially known as FELIX) and Stavroula Kounadea (known to most as STAV). Felix has hand-knitted a speaker system and is building a radio according to the instructions of a 1950s ladybird book for boys. Stav can wire up a plug and use a wire stripper as effectively as she can bake a dozen cupcakes. Mixing our worlds in scores, DIY learning programmes, performances and installations, we’ve created artwork about such things as handbags, mixtapes, sewing machines, food-colours and making our own pants.

“The World is in our Handbags”, STELIX workshop, November 2009

Coming respectively from soundart and performing arts backgrounds, we share a passion for fun, baking, beer, turbans, crafts, road-trips and practices that collapse the borders between ordinary life and extraordinary art. We love Miranda July, Sophie Calle and Mundane Appreciation; we read Georges Perec, Joe Moran and Tom Hodgkinson; we build toolkits, stationery and clothes; we listen to mixtapes, sewing machines and handbuilt electronic instruments (and sometimes The Smiths). Our dream job involves lecturing at The School of Life, publishing instruction scores and Philosophies of The Everyday, or building a Sonic Cupcake Empire. HEARth draws on our former projects and celebratory aesthetic, extending the warmth and humour we enjoy in our collaborations to you.