WELCOME TO MY SITE
This website presents an overview of my sound, art and performance works from 2011 onwards. For my latest activities, my solo work , band Dead Space Chamber Music, and collaborative event series Dark Alchemy can all be found on Facebook, Twitter, Bandcamp, Youtube and Instagram.
Introducing my work: Polyphonic Practice and Vocalising Site
I am a visual artist, singer-composer and performance maker, working in Bristol UK. My work spans the mediums of sound, performance, voice, drawing, music composition, video and artistic direction. READ MORE HERE
HIGHLIGHTS: 2014 - current
◦ SITE SINGING Ongoing project around vocal sound-art, field recording, performance and drawing Read more
- DEAD SPACE CHAMBER MUSIC Live performances, E.P and album release
“Dead Space Chamber Music are a band that will reward your attention in ways you never thought possible...intriguing, enchanting cinematic and gothic delights captured. Bristol has a wildly diverse scene and one of the most intriguing bands around are Dead Space Chamber Music. If you want to step away from the mainstream and feed your head, read on...” Read full interview for Bristol 24/7 with Jonathon Kardasz
https://dscm.bandcamp.com/
For upcoming gigs, photos and videos:
Follow Dead Space Chamber Music on Facebook
Personnel:
Tom Bush - guitars + FX, programming / treatments
Liz Muir - cello + FX
Ellen Southern - voice, vocal sound-works. artwork
Dead Space Chamber Music live at Dark Alchemy II, the crypt of Saint John On The Wall, Bristol, January 2018. Photography by Katie Murt
- THE SEER Collaborative performance collective headed by Conny Prantera
I contribute voice, sound and live performance to The SeeR, alongside artists including BURL, Hannah White, Stephen Sheil, Charlotte Law, Gwen Osmond and Tom Fug. I have taken part in editions at the Supersonic Festival in Birmingham (2017), at the Woodland Gathering in Cumbria and at Dronica Festival #9, in London (2018).
Review in The Quietus of the Woodland Gathering 2017
Ellen Southern in The SeeR: Song by the Moon Pond live in the woods at the Woodland Gathering 2018 Videoclip 1 , Videoclip 2 by Elyssa Iona.
Photography by Robin Hill
- SITE SINGING LIVE PERFORMANCE Work in progress
I am currently working on a live suite / experimental song-cycle and release based on the material I generate through my ongoing Site Singing project. I am testing out elements of this through solo live performances in Bristol, for example in 2017 at The Stage (Working Title) at the Arnolfini, at the Bristol Hum Festival of Experimental and Improvised Music, and as part of Exit Strategies group exhibition at RAW Berlin (scroll down for documentation of all of these performances).
In 2018, this work in progress has been further tested out in the March edition of the monthly Sound Cupboard monthly experimental night at the Crofters Rights, Bristol (see images below), opening for Ocean Floor’s album release for ‘Mirror’ in September at Cafe Kino, Bristol, and again at the same venue for Silencio - An Evening Of Ambient Music alongside Tina Hitchens, Microdeform, and Deej Dhariwhal (Thoughtforms) & Sarah James.
One work from this work in progress, Long Barrow, has been recorded as a studio version, for a radio broadcast on Resonance Extra as part of a special show, ‘Electrowomen’, which showcased a selection of contemporary female artists working with experimental sound, hosted of Nicola Serra (curator of the Dronica Festival). Listen to the show here artists featured: She Spread Sorrow, Signorina ?Alos, Kate Carr, Odio Sis, Cosimina, Ingrid Plum, Steph Horak, Ellen Southern, Xname.
SELECTED LIVE EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS, COLLABORATIONS & FEATURES 2015 - 2018
- SITE SINGING PODCAST Avon Stories, December 2017
Sarah Connolly from Avon Stories accompanied me on a Site Singing field trip to document my vocal field recording project. We discussed the site itself, Over Bridge just outside Gloucester, in relation to vocal exploration, and the approaches to site specific sound work that I have developed in this project.
Listen to the podcast here:
Read the article on the Avon Stories site:
https://avonstories.com/2017/12/07/avon-stories-podcast-14-ellen-southern/
- SITE SINGING at EXIT STRATEGIES Group exhibition and live performance at RAW Berlin, December 2017
Exit Strategies: Individual Utopias website
- RELEASE OF ‘COMPOUND’ Collaboration with BURL (Joanna Pucci), 2016-17
https://lrub.bandcamp.com/track/compound
We toured this work in Bristol (Thorny at The Cube Microplex, Schwetfest 2.0 by Cacophonous Sarcophagus at The Exchange, and at the Surrey Vaults), Cardiff (Undertone) and London (New River Studios). Scroll down for more documentation from this collaboration.
We were noted as ‘One of Four new Acts You Need To Know’ in a review by Crack magazine: “Shrouded in veils and clad in black, Pucci lets her vapourous productions, sometimes presented with help from the talents of vocal sound artist Ellen Southern, diffuse under the sound of live bells, rung as if by an unseen force [...] a meditative seance for increasingly dark times.”
Read the full review: Four New Acts You Need To Know - review in Crack Magazine (August 2016)
- SITE SINGING LIVE AT THE BRISTOL HUM FESTIVAL 2017 The Surrey Vaults, Bristol, Sunday 17th September 2017
Read the Site Singing blog entry about the origins of the piece, and hear work in progress.
Hear an extract from the live performance here:
https://www.facebook.com/bristolhum/
Photo: Gemma Fae
Photo: Alice Sheridan
- SITE SINGING WORKSHOP at SHOREDITCH CHURCH Sunday April 23rd 2017
Moon Choir sessions are run monthly, and afterwards in the same space is The Sun At Night, where artists in any medium are invited to perform and try out new works. We presented a version what we had been doing at of the Site Singing workshop earlier that day. I also performed a solo song, which is a bare-bones version of O Deathe Rock Me Asleepe (attr. Anne Boleyn), which I perform with my band Dead Space Chamber Music.
Read more about the session here
Site Singing with The Moon Choir - live at The Sun At Night from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ SITE SINGING ARNOLFINI BLOG ARTICLE March 2017
I was invited to introduce the project ahead of taking to The Stage for Site Singing’s live debut with singers Leila Gamaz and Chloé Turpin.
“The Stage (Working Title) now in Gallery 1 for our Spring Season offers space and apparatus for performance, gathering, idling and discussion. This week on The Stage we can enjoy the live debut of Ellen Southern’s vocal field-recording project, Site Singing”.
Read the full article here
See video and more from Site Singing at The Stage on the Bristol-made works page
◦ CITIES AND MEMORY: SACRED SPACE Commission, international project released February 2017
I created a new sound work for Cities and Memory, in response to a call out to re-imagine a field recording of a sacred space. The scope of the project was huge: recordings from 34 countries bringing together 123 artists and field recordists from around the world.
The project has received much acclaim since its release, and has been widely shared via social media. Hear BBC radio interviews with curator Stuart Fowkes here.
Hear all the works and see the global sound-map on the Sacred Spaces webpage
My piece was created from an ambient recording of a rainstorm from within West Ogwell church in Devon:
I chose this recording for its atmosphere and sonic texture. It offered the possibility for me to create a voice-based sound work from an audio track free from prescribed musical sound, voices or melody.
I approached the making of my re-imagined track as a form of ritual in itself. I took some quiet hours alone and created a space to work on my sonic response. I dimmed the lights, lit a candle, and the moon was rising. I listened intensely to the original recording over and over, and enjoyed becoming increasingly aware of the physicality of the layers of sound. The cumulative effect was quite trance-like. I instinctively found myself listening for tones or ‘voices’ within the white noise of the rain, and was startled by two sounds near the end of the track which seemed to be just that – either human or a bird (an owl?). This made me think of EVP (electronic voice phenomena): ambient recordings made by those listening back for presences or traces of the dead. I have heard a demonstration of EVP recordings in an English church previously, and this experience influenced the aesthetics of some of my past works. There is a kind of focus quality of perception when listening for such ‘voices’, as well as a minimal sound-world of empty air, sonic interference and glitching (hissing, white noise, wind disturbance etc.), as well as the sounds of recording devices themselves. Remembering this, I decided to keep my response similarly plain, yet make it dense and uncertain, a touch austere, with the feeling of being a found-recording of some strange past event.
Read more about the creation of the West Ogwell piece here
Hear the original fiend recording by Tony Whitehead, here
- SPEAKING VISUALS ZINE ARTICLE ‘MEET THE ARTIST: ELLEN SOUTHERN’ November 2016
“Bristol-based artist Ellen Southern takes experimental music to extraordinary new heights. Choral singer come performance artist, her work draws on the history of singing to create a fresh style rooted in tradition...Her current polyphonic (multi-voiced) work seeks to instill the multi-dimensionality of fine art into contemporary sound performances...In our world of instant gratification and shortening attention span, Southern's less-is-more philosophy is not only refreshing, it is the dawning of redemption”
Read the full article: http://speakingvisuals.co.uk/blog/meet-the-artist-ellen-southern
◦ COLLABORATION WITH BURL (Joanna Pucci): ‘Compound’, a live noise / drone / ritual work
Joanna Pucci invited me to be guest vocalist on her live project, BURL (I first encountered her at the Eastonia event where I presented Site Singing , see below).
We have been performing an ever-evolving 30 min sound/noise/drone/ritual piece, which we have recently recorded and titled COMPOUND,which is now released:
https://lrub.bandcamp.com/track/compound
We were noted in a review in Crack magazine: “Shrouded in veils and clad in black, Pucci lets her vapourous productions, sometimes presented with help from the talents of vocal sound artist Ellen Southern, diffuse under the sound of live bells, rung as if by an unseen force [...] a meditative seance for increasingly dark times.”
Read the full review: Four New Acts You Need To Know - feature in Crack Magazine (August 2016)
COMPOUND live performance (short): BURL with Ellen Southern (voice) from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
Performances to date:
- The Surrey Vaults Bristol, supporting Pheromoans, 15th April 2016
- THORNY club night at the Cube Microplex, Bristol, 16th April 2016
- New River Studios London, June 5th supporting Pheromoans (thanks to Conny for the image below - video coming soon!)
- Cacophonous Sarcophagus: Schwetfest 2.0 at The Exchange, Bristol, 16th July 2016
- Undertone, Cardiff, supporting The Death of Money and Bruxa Maria, 24 September 2016
- POLYPHONY: experiments and adventures in voice Solo exhibition at Centrespace Gallery, Bristol 2nd - 6th September 2016
Selected visitors comments:
“A beautiful, haunting show. Love the combination of sound and visual material.”
“Intriguing and a different way of using audio and voice. I love the fact that its playful, haunting, and ritualistic. Thank you.”
“Really haunting and moving – loved the ‘Site Singing’ photos of Over Bridge, and the ‘Fugue’ installation.”
“An absolutely brilliant collection of interactions. Very touching, I didn’t want to leave (I came back!). The human voice in all its rich experience. If there is anywhere else to go, Ellen will take us there.”
“This is one of the most brain-tingling events I have ever witnessed. There should be more of this sort of stuff in Bristol – and elsewhere.”
“Thank you for realising things that I have been feeling around in my head for years and never had the courage to put into concrete. Brilliant!”
Exhibition overview: Centrespace Website
For updates: follow @ellen_southern & see #polyphonyexhib
POLYPHONY: Press Release
Bristol Sacred Harp on Bandcamp
Artist text: “Welcome to POLYPHONY”
◦ SALTINGS PRESENTS - THE BRISTOL HUM Experimental music and film festival, 6th - 10th July, The Edwardian Cloakroom, Bristol
Engaged Voice returned to the Edwardian Cloakroom, but slightly altered...! Vocal recordings from my 2014 site-specific exhibition Engaged Voice were re-worked by myself and Tom Bush as Dead Space Chamber Music, with the excellent addition of cello by Liz Muir (Saltings).
Hear excerpts for the performance here
See THE BRISTOL HUM blog
Dead Space Chamber Music on Facebook
@saltingsmusic & see #thebristolhum & #EngagedVoice
Bristol Arts Development guest blog: Engaged Voice
- DEAD SPACE CHAMBER MUSIC Demo EP release
DSCM Demo EP
Dead Space Chamber Music on Facebook
Artwork: ‘Amphisbaena’ by Ellen Southern
◦ SANCTUM: Theaster Gates / Situations / MAYK October - November 2015
I took part in this ambitious sound project as part of Dead Space Chamber Music, integrating vocal sound-scapes from my ongoing Site Singing project.
I sang as part of Bristol Sacred Harp choir, and while the project ran, was invited to sing ‘What Shall I Do With My Hands’, a 5am incantation to the rhythm of a potters wheel by Louisa Fairclough with singer Chloë Somers and Lou Gilbert Scott of Potstop.
See the Sanctum Bristol website and blog for documentation of the project
Read the Guardian review of Sanctum
See #sanctumbristol on Twitter
Performing with Tom Bush as Dead Space Chamber Music
‘What Shall I Do With My Hands”, photo by Louisa Fairclough
- AMALGAMS: an interdisciplinary immersive performance at the John Wesley Chapel, Bristol: Saturday 31st October 2015
Amalgams (def: a mixture or blend) was a new collaborative performance created together with other invited practitioners by the Onomato Collective. Fellow invited participants included musicians Tina Hitchens, Dominic Lash & Hannah Marshall, electronic artist Liam McConaghy: Microdeform , film maker Louisa Fairclough and Film Curator Kim Knowles (both part of the BEEF film group, Bristol). Many thanks to fellow shapenote-singers Rachel Wemyss, Leila Gamaz and Chloë Somers from Bristol Sacred Harp. See a short video below by Ben Owen. A M A L G A M S Short event document by Onomato from Benjamin Owen on Vimeo.
Read more about AMALGAMS here
Part of the Bristol and Bath Art Weekender 2015
Photos and poster by Ben Owen of Onomato Collective, additional photos by Ellen Southern
◦ BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF SONG 9th - 18th October 2015
Bristol Sacred Harp made a Festival of Song debut this year, taking part in Song Raids on a variey of locations on the harbour, and performing a lunchtime concert at the amazing St Mary Redcliffe Cathedral.
Hear the audio here
We also led a shape-note singing workshop at The American Museum, Bath.
◦ EASTONIA - exploring landscapes with artists and academics Friday 9th October 2015
I presented Site Singing as part of an innovative new event series curated by Guy Lochhead. Poster artwork by Alice McFarlane.
See the blog entry about the event on the Site Singing website
See the event Facebook page for info on all participants
Hear Guy Lochheads mixtape on the theme of ‘ruins’
◦ BRISTOL SACRED HARP AT SUPERNORMAL FESTIVAL 7th - 9th August 2015
I really enjoyed the Supernormal Festival 2015, a three-day experimental arts and music festival in Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. We gave a shape-note singing workshop, where we got tens of first-timers singing loud and proud!
See the Bristol Sacred Harp website to join us for weekly singing
Hear audio clips from the 2nd annual Bristol All Day Singing 2015
- PARTICIPATORY TOUR OF EXHIBITIONS BY RETO PULFER AND PATRICK STAFF Spike Island, 18th July 2015
This track was created by visitors on a performative tour I gave of the exhibition of Reto Pulfer's water-inspired installation Gewässerzeiten. Pulfer's own composition which plays in the space can be heard, as well as distant excerpts from the nearby installation of Patrick Staff's The Foundation.
See & download the exhibition programme here
About the tour: The day of the tour coincided with World Listening Day (see above), which was on the theme of water. So I suggested we use our voices to create layers of watery sounds as we walked meditatively amongst the installation. This informal interactive tour proposed and explored potential connections between these two seemingly contrasting shows, testing out how one exhibition might in fact reveal insights into the other.
The audience was invited to share in this process, through open discussion, personal reflection and through participatory activities (a collaborative mnemonic-drawing and this group sound-work) in order to enact and realise shared themes such as notions of archiving documentary and collecting, revealing the means of making, memory, sanctuary, trust and generosity.
Many thanks to all for taking part and sharing thoughts and experiences!
Current programme: Spike Island
◦ SITE SINGING - vocal Explorations of English Heritage Sites solo exhibition at Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, 4th - 8th July 2015
Thank you to all who joined me at Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, to hear and reflect on work in progress from my current project.
“Engaging sound-sketches, inspired by visits to some of Bristol’s finest heritage sites” - Bristol Life
“Southern is a genuine polymath...the execution [of her sound-sketches] requiring dedication, planning, and hard work. [They are] all created by the artist using her own voice [with] each piece drawing on her fine art and drawing background” Louise Trimby, Bristol 24/7 read full article here
About the exhibition: Since last summer, sound artist Ellen Southern has visited a variety of heritage sites within a day of Bristol by foot and public transport, in keeping with Bristol being Green Capital 2015. At each site, she has experimented with her own voice and the acoustics of each space, using her voice to vocalise, or give voice to, these sites.
The resulting sound sketches, created from recordings made at these sites, are works in progress towards final audio works. These will be downloadable by the public, with the aim of contributing to the visitor interpretation of, and encourage engagement with, these lesser known English Heritage sites.
The exhibition will offer the opportunity to hear the sound works created so far, with varying combinations presented each day, and discuss their making with Ellen. Drawings and photographs from the field trips will be exhibited alongside the sound works. Read more
Read an exclusive article on Site Singing featured in Sound Art Text
See the latest from #SiteSinging on twitter
- BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL CREATIVE SPACES PROGRAMME GUEST BLOG ARTICLE November 2014
Read an article I wrote about my site-specific vocal residency Engaged Voice, at the Edwardian Cloakroom, November 2014. Click to download the article.
