[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]
a one day sound and art festival exploring the labyrinthine acoustic spaces of Newhaven Fort
EVENT DATE: 22 September 2018, 12pm - 11pm LOCATION: Newhaven Fort, East Sussex email: [email protected] website: www.fortprocess.co.uk TICKETS: http://www.wegottickets.com/f/11730
Fort Process is an expansive bi-annual music and arts festival that takes place in the evocative spaces of Newhaven Fort in East Sussex. The 2018 edition is set to continue the critical success of the first two.
The experience of Fort Process takes festival-goers wandering through underground tunnels, caverns and old armaments rooms, coming across new immersive artworks as they go, before emerging into the sunshine. Musicians perform on old gun emplacements high up on the fort’s ramparts while the audience looks out to sea, and the many rooms in the fort grounds are host to talks and workshops.
The element of discovery is key to the festival’s character, inspiring an adventure in sonic and visual information as visitors roam around the site. This concept has been fused into much of the programming this year, offering the audience artistic ways to uncover history, witness abstract ceremonies, investigate science, geography and cognitive processes.
Rhys Chatham will perform ‘Pythagorean Dream’, his acclaimed solo piece that constructs hypnotic layers of trumpet in phased loops. AJA and UKAEA incorporate rhythmic rituals into their performances, drawing the audience into a open field of interactive rapture. David Thomas Broughton is the closest you’ll get to hearing songs at Fort Process, but he goes about it in such a surreal way they seem to unravel before your eyes and ears.
International artists include a special contingent from the Helsinki-based collective Charm of Sound; Japanese sound artist Tetsuya Umeda, who will use the full space of the fort’s Romney Hut to conduct kinetic experiments with materials and temperatures; and Greek-born instrument-inventor Tasos Stamou, who will perform with his latest creations.
Renowned media-art duo Semiconductor will reveal subatomic processes in an intricate video piece. Max Eastley will construct an aeolian sound structure, revealing to us the hidden forces in the wind around us. Louise Mackenzie will invite participants to transmute data derived from the DNA in seawater into sound.
EXPANSION
This year Fort Process is part of a wider season called Fort Process Dispersion, which comprises further events taking place in Brighton, Newhaven, London and other places in the south east. Each of these events seeks to represent a different shade of the festival in another location, and confirmed venue venues partners include De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, London’s Cafe OTO and The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts in East Sussex.
As well as live gigs, the season will also feature workshops and events that tap into other artistic disciplines. Information on these events will be posted on the main Fort Process website.
MORE ON NEWHAVEN FORT
Built in 1860, Newhaven Fort is an alluring site, rich in human and natural history. After being decommissioned as a military facility the fort has undergone neglect and subsequent restoration, with many of the features of its inner architecture remaining intact, including the rumoured ghost in the caponier. Built physically into the geology of the South Downs, it gives it a unique perspective of Newhaven town, the sea and surrounding hills.
The outside areas centre around the parade ground, tracing steps up to the ramparts where the perimeter is met with far reaching views of the English Channel to one side, Newhaven and the South Downs to the other. The interior, however, becomes mysterious and disorientating, replete with a remarkable acoustic character. Fort Process is an artistic response to this unique venue.
FEATURING
PERFORMANCE RHYS CHATHAM (USA) JEZ RILEY FRENCH & PHEOBE RILEY LAW (UK) TETSUYA UMEDA (JP) KYOKA (JP) GRISCHA LICHTENBERGER (GER) SHATNER'S BASSOON (UK) JOBINA TINNEMANS (NL) ANA GUTIESZCA (MEX) NIKO KARLSSON (FIN) RITUAL EXTRA (FIN) TASOS STAMOU (GR) AJA (UK) NEW INTERPRETATIONS ORCHESTRA (UK) UKAEA (UK) DAVID THOMAS BROUGHTON (UK) WELL HUNG GAME (UK) MAP 71 (UK) BELL LUNGS (UK) ISN'TSES (UK) VOCES CASTRUM (UK) SILENCE BLOSSOMS (SWE) THE LARSENS (UK) BLANC SCEOL (UK) ORE (UK) AUTOMATIC WRITING CIRCLE (UK) SLOW LISTENER (UK)
INSTALLATION MAX EASTLEY (UK) ALICE ELDRIDGE AND CHRIS KIEFER (UK) LOUISE MACKENZIE (UK) KATHY HINDE + MATTHEW OLDEN (UK) SEMICONDUCTOR (UK) URSULA DAMM (GER) MARK ANDERSON (UK) ADAM BASANTA (CAN) JEPH VANGER (GR) CECILE CHEVALIER + CHRIS KIEFER (FR/UK) LITTORAL TRANSMISSIONS (UK) COPPER SOUNDS (UK) DAN POWELL (UK) JULIAN WEAVER (UK) KIRA + (RU) JASON HOTCHKISS' TESLA COIL ORGAN + CHAOS MATRIX (UK) GUODA DIRZYTE (LT) JEZ STEVENS (UK) KATIE MCCALLUM + KARL M V WAUGH (UK) NICHOLAS RITSON (UK) MIKE BLOW (UK) DISINFORMATION (UK)
TALKS DIRK CAMPBELL - MUSIC AND DANCE IN REMOTE ANTIQUITY (UK) JAMIE WARD + JULIA SIMNER - SYNAESTHESIA (UK) JOE BANKS - RORSCHACH AUDIO (UK)
...plus many more to be announced...
LINKS AND MEDIA
Fort Process website | Facebook event | Lost Property website | Lost Property Twitter
Hi-res photos: Newhaven Fort* | Fort Process 2014* | Fort Process 2016*
*credit: Agata Urbaniak
MEDIA QUOTES
“Organisers Lost Property excelled themselves at their inaugural festival event, curating a near-impossible convergence of artists and installations in a complex space chosen precisely because of its challenging qualities.” - Ben Graham, The Quietus
“...there’s something delightfully relaxing - and not a little subversive - about strolling around what was once an outpost of stiff discipline, oblivious to stage times or potential clashes, and open to the joy and surprise of accidental discovery.” - Daniel Spicer, The Wire
“The place was riddled with nifty installations, every twist and turn revealed more: motorised wire fountains, rusted plate-bouncing batons, numerous lakes of candles, slowly melting ice blocks… things just unfolded, far removed from the choking congestion of other festivals.” - Michael Rodham-Heaps