Loula Yorke | What I Do In The Shadows (live)

Loula Yorke is a live artist and composer whose work harnesses raw electronic signal as an artistic tool. In response to COVID-19, Loula co-founded new fortnightly experimental electronics livestream, SonitusLIVE, to help artists to get up and running with the new medium and provide a built-in performance opportunity. In this live pieec What I Do In The Shadows, the left-hand window documents a 20-minute timed improvisation, where the right-hand window shows projections, film and movement. Find Loula on Facebook here.

“During lockdown gardening became my daily focus. I became enamoured with intensely dramatic and alluring umbrae and penumbrae created by strong sunlight hitting different varieties of plants – so much so that I started to document them, creating black and white film collages using clips recorded on my phone. These became visuals for my improvised, disjointed sound performances using hardware electronics. The livestream window became a new canvas, with its own punishing limitations. It felt vital to create a physical connection with this new digital dimension: I projected my film collages onto the inside of a real-world window, casting shadows against it using my body as well as various household and domestic objects, signifying ‘home’ (a nod to The Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler): our lives on pause, turned inwards, keeping to the shadows, devoted to the small stuff.”