performance
Liveness is at the core of my artistic practice - impermanence, transience, interaction, failure, reptition, chaos, improvisation, response.
My live works often explore voice and utterance, integrating technological strategies to highlight and/or undermine the performing voice. They also address technology as a performance medium, both through the use of virtual, electroacoustic and acoustic instrument design and through algorithmic compositional techniques.
Here you can find examples of my past work, information for booking and details of upcoming performances.
upcoming
No upcoming performances
repertoire
Below, you can find details about bookable performance pieces. They range from short and lightweight 5-15 minute gig pieces, to set-length performances in more open contexts, to fully-developed theatre productions. All the pieces here have already been premiered. Each contains a link to an example or extract of the piece, if one exists, and further details such as performance context and duration are given below. Given the current performing contexts, I have favoured those which are livestream-friendly. I constantly have new work in the pipeline and, as you can see from the examples on this page, I've created a lot of work as part of commissions, thematic responses to artistic calls and from reconstituted performance matter from past shows. If you would like to commission me to create a new piece or find out how you can support one of my current projects, get in touch.
In order to find out more about any of these pieces, to book one of these performances for an event either in person or online, please email me at xavier@xaviervelastin.com.
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self-destructive sound poetry
Link:
Video
Using a series of recursive samplers and granulators coded in Max/MSP, I
disrupt my voice while reading a repetitive text about the production of
meaning.
Short gig piece: sound poetry, experimental poetry.
Livestream-friendly.
Duration: ~5 minutes.
Image credit: Xavier Velastín.
Ghosts
cyborg noise
Link:
Audio
Noisy and unpredictable gig piece in which I create noise with loose
audio jacks and play an amplified projector stand with violin bows.
Feature gig piece: experimental music, noise music.
Livestream-friendly.
Duration: 10-20 minutes.
Created as part of a commission by Not Quite Light.
Image credit: Helen Darby.
re:forms
thief music
Link:
Video
A short piece that uses the sounds from other performances to generate
compositional material.
Feature gig piece: performance art,
Livestream-friendly.
Duration: 10+ minutes (depending on the number of other performances).
Created for Forms in Flux, a livestreamed experimental poetry which I co-curated along with Iris Colomb for SLANT.
Image Credit: Suzi Corker.
Gut Feelings
joystick utterance
Link:
Audio
Sound poetry piece that uses a hacked flight simulator joystick to
distort and disrupt words, song and non-verbal utterance. This piece has
had lots of iterations, most recently
here.
Feature gig piece: experimental, spoken word, noisy.
Livestream-friendly.
Duration: 10-25 mins.
Image credit: Southbank Centre, London.
[whalesong]
the sound of the ocean
Link: about [whalesong]
A human-computer duet about the noise in the oceans with a flexible,
constantly shifting narrative structure inspired by the calls of baleen
whales.
Theatre: Experimental, sound play.
In person only.
Duration: 45-75 minutes.
Note: Due to the segmented form of [whalesong], I can also perform
extracts from 5-30 minutes, such as
here.
Created with the support of Watershed and Theatre Deli.
Image credit: Suzi Corker.
Me & My Whale
a sound play
Link:
Trailer
Sound play about a submarine captain who falls in love with a whale
featuring highly sophisticated and integrated sound design. Created with
performance maker Hannah Mook.
Theatre: Experimental, sound play, two-hander.
In person only.
Duration: 1 hour.
Supported with National Lottery funding by Arts Council England, and the support of stage@leeds, The HopBarn Southwell and the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester.
Image credit: Luca Rudlin.