Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast

The final episode of the Xylophobia season presents a radio play written by our podcast guest curators, SUBTERRA: Marie-Chantal Hamrock and Astrid Björklund.

Told through the voice of the Narrator, we are presented with an eccentric cast of characters living and contending with an ever diminished and hostile landscape, made up of old mines, towering blast furnaces, an inexplicable blackness which seems to spread insidiously, and a strange red substance that emanates from the earth.

Among the characters are an unnamed man who searches in desperation for 'that place' using an old ironstone amulet; Niko and Launo are two hardened characters who seem to have strayed from their community and traverse this landscape alone, speaking wistfully of old times; The Withered Arm is a disembodied human arm working as a barmaid in the Inn of Ill Omens with its ever decreasing customers sadly sipping from their worthy pints; The Strange Man seems to know something sinister no one else does and plays cruel tricks on those around him. And finally, the Fermyn is an ethereal character who cannot be described in words and has no discernible form but somehow seems to know more than anyone else about the nature of this dark world.

… All the while the narrator begins to lose her grip on reality and starts to question her very own existence.

Please note: This episode is binaural/atmospheric recording best listened to with headphones.

More at: ⁠⁠https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-24-subterra

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast presents a new work, O' God of Weather by Saoirse Horne.

O’ God of Weather combines elements of ambient music, folk song, and field recording, which together paint a vivid and imaginative world, rooted in messages of phantasm and fabrication.

Somehow, through a painterly appreciation of texture, patience and solitude, the artist manages to create a sensitive and ethereal act of balladry – O’ God of Weather considers how deeply weather affects our lives - and how it can impede our access to woodland spaces. The work has a visionary awareness of multiple temporalities, giving the listener glimpses into the lived experience of the artist, while also offering interpolated fictions and folklores that lead to imaginative world building. Painting through wave, tone, harmony and storytelling, Saoirse’s work feels both permanent and ephemeral in its reverence for an invisible, yet powerful deity.

This work might make one feel as though through the simple act of listening they are part of some sacred incantation, invoking the almighty God of Weather.

More at: ⁠https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-23-saoirse-horne

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast with artist Tosca Terán draws from fungal mycelial communication research to create a soundscape which the artist herself describes as ‘perhaps a bit ominous with a dash of science fiction’.

Working with the bio-electrical activity of living mycelium, in Forest UnderSound = Ways of Knowing, Tosca reveals the ethereal fungi frequencies of the oyster mushroom, pleurotus ostreatus.

Threading control voltages throughout what Tosca affectionately refers to as a 'Myco-Synth' the mushroom becomes a conduit for pulsating waves, coursing through intricate patch cables to construct a mesmerizing drone.

Thanks to Spencer Graham for providing the field recording from Fermyn Woods that was interpolated into this work.

More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-22-tosca-teran

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features a rich and profound work by A Ton of Worms - a multidisciplinary artist and writer whose primary focus is an immersive communing with Taxus Baccata (the English yew), through both classic art forms as well as field recording, whittling, fermentation, and propagation. Their work also addresses the conservation of persecuted wildlife and plants, the maligned and misrepresented (often chthonic) species overlooked by many, and the beauty and effulgence of decay at the intersection of nature and civilisation.
Wood as Home, Dirt as Time is the audio recording of a performance piece undertaken on the Summer Solstice of 2023 and edited retrospectively into sound collage. It explores themes of time, space, nature, and human connection through the chthonic lens of an ancient yew tree - conjuring the imagined state of consciousness of a being that lives and perceives in centuries rather than years.
More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-21-a-ton-of-worms

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.

This video is a response by artist Sapphire Goss to Episode 20 of the Fermynwoods Podcast which features a discussion with artist Spencer Graham, whilst utilising the Music and Talk feature on Spotify, which allows for tracks to be integrated into the conversation.
Spencer Graham is an artist based in Northamptonshire, UK. His practice revolves around a deep interest in music, and questions ideas relating to materiality and place. Utilising and sharing very specific collections of music, acquired according to self-set constraints, he considers how we access, consume, use, and most importantly, listen to music.
Spencer's deep interest in music and the everyday has led him to work with records, CDs, cassettes and MP3s as his primary media for the last ten years. In this episode Spencer discusses circular narratives, his Xylophobia / Shinrin-yoku audio mixes produced for our Xylophobia: Online exhibition, forest themed tracks that didn't make it into those mixes, and his own fields recordings from Fermyn Woods.
More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-20-spencer-graham

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features the work of Maja Zećo. In September 2022, Maja negotiated Hazel and Thoroughsale Woods from Corby town centre, Northamptonshire, as Silencer.

Silencer is a performance in a sensory impairment soundwalking suit complete with earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones. Where Maja experienced the environment in complete silence the suit made ‘the other’ visible in public while concealing gender, body shape and voice. At once both a playful intervention and an unexpected encounter, the work has connotations of protective clothing and social distancing that speak to larger fears of walking through woodland spaces.

At the heart of this work are two very important questions: “Who is listening?” and “Who is performing?”

Listeners are advised to listen with headphones as this is a binaural mix.

The following episode features themes that might be triggering for some listeners and contains strong language which may be unsuitable or offensive.

More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-19-maja-zeco

This episode has been edited by Astrid Björklund, the other half of SUBTERRA.

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.

For this episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast artists Danny Treacy and Johannes Zits from our Treewilder exhibition at Barnwell Country Park, share a drink and conversation with Marie-Chantal Hamrock, one half of our podcast curators SUBTERRA.

With both artists work speaking to and of the trees, it has been suggested that Danny might represent the dark, whilst Johannes the light. However through the following conversation, both artists reveal how such binary oppositions might in fact not be the case and the works coalesce and converge - meeting at what is perhaps the most intriguing uniting theme: joy.

More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-18-danny-treacy-johannes-zits/

This episode has been edited by Astrid Björklund, the other half of SUBTERRA.

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features a new audio essay, The forest will answer in the way you call to it, by Hanna Tuulikki, encouraging a conversation with the woods, exploring her Finnish heritage, and weaving together family stories, folklore and song. The piece reflects on how ideals of ecology, identity, and nationhood are constructed and entwined. The essay features audio extracts from her installation Under Forest Cover (Metsänpeiton Alla), commissioned for Helsinki Biennial 2021. More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-17-hanna-tuulikki/

The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.

A new video by Sapphire Goss in response to episode 16 of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast by Maya Livio.

Episode 16 features an original sonic essay by Maya Livio and JP Merz, followed by a discussion with Maya Livio: Salvaging Birds contains a chorus of human and non-human voices, drawing attention to biases within avian conservation datasets. Here she has set a research-driven essay against sounds generated by an AI which was trained on specific datasets, particularly ones from the Cornell Library of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library – the world’s largest and oldest scientific archive of wildlife recordings. By using machine learning to speculatively queer birdsong datasets, the work complicates datafied approaches to conserving what and who is left of our world.

To maintain the digital integrity of the Maya's AI driven work, Sapphire's response using obsolete analogue technologies is presented separately from the main episode.

Find Sapphire's video on Spotify and more at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-16-maya-livio/

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features Salvaging Birds, an original sonic essay by Maya Livio and JP Merz, followed by a discussion with Maya Livio.

Through the use of what Maya calls expanded nonfiction, she constructs a haunting and lyrical sonic essay containing a chorus of both human and non-human voices. The work draws attention to the biases and misclassifications within avian conservation datasets.

Here she has set a research-driven essay against sounds generated by an AI which was trained on specific datasets, particularly ones from the Cornell Library of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library – the world’s largest and oldest scientific archive of wildlife recordings. By using machine learning to speculatively queer birdsong datasets, the work complicates datafied approaches to conserving what and who is left of our world.

More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-16-maya-livio/

Thumbnail image: Salvaging Birds, generative image by Cassie McQuater, 2022