Graham Dunning

exhibitions / instruments / videos / workshops / installations / events / print / publications

	01/08/26	Mechanical Techno Workshop, Awamu Together Festival, Chilterns Workshop in modifying records and making music.
	30/03/26	PhD Thesis: Mechanical Techno: extended turntable as live assemblage In a three-year practice-as-research project, I developed new instrumental interfaces, performances, recordings and collaborations with the Mechanical Techno extended turntable setup. The thesis presents this practical work alongside discussing of the project as both a type of assemblage and a process of assemblage. The full thesis and the audio visual materials can be accessed via the link on the right.	[thesis/media]
	23/03/26	Messing About as Creative Process: Anti-Solutionist Approaches in the Maker’s Workshop, Home Studio and on Stage Chapter in a book of conference proceedings: Innovation in Music: Innovative Creative Practice. Edited By Claus Sohn Andersen, Jan-Olof Gullö, Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Mark Marrington, Justin Paterson, Rob Toulson. My chapter discusses the potential for messing about to open up new avenues of research, through analysis of aspects of my practice.	[book]
	13-22/02/26	The Thingness of Stuff, Ruby Cruel, Hackney, London The Thingness of Stuff is an exhibition of artists who use collecting as a starting point for making. Curated by artist Luke Drozd, this exhibition looks at the nature of obsession and gathering – via personal collections and archives – and the connections which form between seemingly unconnected “things”. The show includes some of my collection of found post-it notes. Artists in the exhibition are: Kate Carr, Noel Clueit, Blue Curry, Luke Drozd, Alan Dunn, Graham Dunning, Joanne Lee, Mark Pawson, Suren Seneviratne, Maia Urstad.	[info]
	8/1/25	Improvising with Machines: A taxonomy of musical interactions by Adam Parkinson and Graham Dunning Journal article for Organised Sound. This article maps out some of the relationships between performers and their instruments in live and improvised electronic music. In these practices, musical machines – be they computers, mechanical assemblages or combinations of different sound-makers and processors – act as generators of musical material and sources of unpredictability with which to improvise.	[Paper]
	5/9/24	Ironing In The Creases: Developing An Idiosyncratic Electro-mechanical Musical Instrument By Reinforcing Its Faults Paper presentation for NIME ’24 conference (New Interfaces for Musical Expression). Published peer reviewed conference paper and video presentation	[video] [paper]
	1/12/23	Mechanical Techno Workshop, Next Festival, Bratislava, Slovakia Workshop in modifying records and making music.	[video]
	24/9/23	Mechanical Techno Workshop, Soundings, Worcester A workshop making modified records and music.
	16/3/23	Book launch for Transacting as Art, Design and Architecture: A Non-Commercial Market, online. Edited by Marsha Bradfield, Cinzia Cremona, Amy McDonnell and Eva Sajovic I took part in the art market in July 2015, with a Music By The Metre kiosk, documentation of which is included in the book.	[book]
	25 – 29/10/21	Aldeburgh Young Musicians: Experimental Music Workshops, Snape Maltings, Suffolk A week of workshops for young musicians, exploring graphic scores, composition, improvisation, foley, field recording and listening. With Cath Roberts, Dee Byrne, Sam Andreae and Nathan Gregory.
	10 – 13/9/22	Errorcamp, Lake District, Cumbria Research, workshops, performances & social weekend with live coders & electronic musicians.
	29/7/20	Noise Quest 7: Lauren Sarah Hayes / Bell Lungs / Remi Fox-Novák / Jonathan Higgins Live stream event	[videos]
	19/7/20	Programmable Acoustic Bass Banjo Instrument module for the Mammoth Beat Organ. Presented at NIME 2020.	videos: demo making
	8/7/20	Noise Quest 6: SERF / Miri Kat / Colin Webster / Tom Mudd Live stream event	[videos]
	17/6/20	Noise Quest 5: Ain Bailey / Me, Claudius / TYPE (The Yorkshire Programming Ensemble) / Sharon Gal Live stream event	[videos]
	13/5/20	Noise Quest 4: Shelly Knotts / Void Hands / TVO / Andrew Lisle Live stream event	[videos]
	30/4/20	Noise Quest 3: Li Yilei / Leon Trimble / GD Live code archive set / Daphnellc Live stream event	[videos]
	16/4/20	The Gävle Goat – live stream experimental and ambient music from Sweden & UK Slim Vic & Graham Dunning / Annie Tådne / AKB / Bredbeddle Live stream event	[videos]
	9/4/20	Noise Quest 2: Mariam Rezaei / Yaxu & hellocatfood / Tom Richards / Loula Yorke Live stream event	[videos]
	27/3/20	Noise Quest 1: Phantom Chips / Jo Thomas / My Panda Shall Fly / Katie Gerardine O’Neill Live stream event	[videos]
	23/3/20	Modified records exhibition, Sound Records, Stroud Some modified records on display – normally used for Mechanical Techno or other live sets, or some just made to look nice.	[photo]
	13/12/19	Tinderbox Lab Workshops: Mechanical Techno, Edinburgh Workshop making modified records and playing them on the MT setup.
	1/12/19	On Turntablism Article about current practice and practitioners of experimental turntablism for Wire Magazine
	1/11/19	Noisevember 2019 – A new noise every day Daily short videos: noises, instruments, cutups, experiments	[videos]
	17/5/19	Algomech 2019 residency, workshop, exhibition and live set, Sheffield During the residency I made a new video piece from different inconsistent rhtyhms slipping out of synchronisation.	[video]
	5/3/19 7/2/19	Modified Records / Vinyl Destruction workshops for Estorick Gallery, London Two workshops using turntables and records	[video]
	15/12/18	Hack the Mammoth Beat Organ + Hackoustik Xmas party. Iklektik, London. An opportunity for people to have a go on the machine and test out new ideas.
	20/10 – 3/11/18	The Ghost Tide, Thames-Side studios, Woolwich, London Exhibition curated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes – showing my cast Stone Tapes.
	22/8/18- 23/5/19	It’s A Mixed Bag – radio show all on vinyl, from 199 Radio, later Threads. Episodes: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7	[audio]
	1/10/18	Mammoth Beat Organ videos Three videos about the project made by Michael Forrest, demonstrating the machine, a making of interview and our debut gig at Supersonic Festival.	[demo] [making] [gig]
	1/12/17	Deconstruct Yourself, De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill-on-Sea Leslie Deere, Tom Richards, Joanne Armitage, Graham Dunning: live performances, video and installations.	[preview]
	30/9/17	Tusk Festival exhibition, Workspace Gallery, Newcastle installation of Real Data video as part of a group show.	[video]
	28/9/17	Museum of Peripheral Collections, Le Bon Accueil, Rennes, France Solo exhibition of various collections, a diorama, album of recordings, tape swap project and live performance at the opening.	[photos]
	20/9/17	Emotion and the Tech(no)ody, Austrian Cultural Forum, London Groups show including my cast Stone Tapes.
	8/8/17	Mix series for New New World Radio (Moscow) Four radio shows, each 2hrs long with a different focus: Scratchy improv, dream sounds, odd electronics, noise.	[tracklists]
	15/7 – 31/12/17	Global Forest 2017 Exhibition Group exhibition showing new video and installation works made during a residency in the town.
	15/6/17	Schéma, Galerie Paradise, Nantes, France Culmination of my residency at the gallery, showing new works and playing a live show with Sascha Brosamer doing a grammophone set.
	12/5/17	Obsolète, Galerie Paradise, Nantes, France Exhibition of existing work, plus live performances from me and Leslie Deere	[video]
	15/4/17	Dismantle Yourself, Somerset House, London Live: Ewa Justka, Algobabez, dtub and me. DJ: Chloe Freida (Alien Jams) Lasers: Jason Haebich	[preview] [photo] [gif]
	3/4/17	Michael Forrest – Computer Screen – Mechanical Techno remix Remixing Michael’s track with sampes from the original pressed to dubplates – the video made by michael also works as a demonstration of the process.	[video]
	24/3/16	Empty Content Machine installation for ReROOTed, Humber Street Gallery Hull Automated mechanisms creating an overlaid abstract video projection.	[video]
	15/12/17	Obsolete Desire: group show curated by Lisa McKendrick Exhibiting a listening post for composition “Aggregate” made in nearby Balfron Tower.	[release]
	1/11/16	AAS: Chaotic Good: Crabhead / Collaborative Princess / Lumpy Oracle, Gallery North, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Three room show for AAS: multiple video works, sculptural installations, sound, interactive monolith, live stream. Opened with four hour performance, edited through audience interraction with the installation and subsequently re-broadcast into the exhibition space.	[video]
	3/9/15	Mechanical Laboratory of Antimatter, Fort Process Festival, Newhaven A day-long performance installation with Henry Liam Collins, Leslie Deere and Sam Underwood – part of the festival in an old sea defence on the south coast.
	31/8/16	AAS – “The Heartbeat of Kong, or More Mouse Bites” at The Royal Geographical Societies Annual International Video/conference paper exploring the deleuzoguattarian concept of Holey Space.	[video]
	31/5/16	AAS: Farming the Young / On the Mirrors of Yukon Performance at IMT Gallery, London, plus video piece and soundtrack tape.	[video] [release]
	19/4/16	Rotor Station A, B, C – for Flatpack Film Festival Installation of some small versions of the Mechanical Techno setup. I never developed the installation version any further so this was the only showing.
	22/11/15	Mechanical Techno Demonstration video Demoing the setup – made at the end of a residency at Machines Room with Michael Forrest.	[video]
	1/11/15	Machines Room Residency Maker residency at Machines Room, London, developing some tech for mechanical techno. Talks, live event and exhibition as part of the residency.	[archive]
	14-28/9/15	Closet Music – Music for Imaginary Performance curated by Janet Oates Showing a piece called Twenty Nine of the Best Recordings I Never Got Round To Making, consisting of empty tape boxes with titles on the spines.
	11/7/15	TransActing: A Market of Values, Critical Practice Chelsea, London Music By The Metre kiosk – making spools of abstract tape music on demand.
	8/5/15	Roadside Museum | An exhibition curated by John O’Hare & Gordon Culshaw A dubplate and a spool of tape left buried for a year, alongside other artists works, were exhumed and exhibited again, this time in Leeds.
	5/2/15	Untitled (Translation 1) – exhibited in London: Sonic Fragment, The Auricle, Christchurch, New Zealand. Curated by Justyna Burzynska. Video made with a rotating collage and automated music.	[video]
	5-9/2/15	CORRESPONDENCE, Prestamex House, Brighton Tape-swap installation with Embla Quickbeam (Rowan Forristier-Waker).	[photo] [photo]
	4/9/15	Election Cut 02 collage shown at IM’Ten, IMT Gallery, London Collage shown in a group show. Part of an ongoing series of colourful, abstract collages made with cut up record sleeves on a 21cm square base. Sometimes used for album covers.	[collage] [collage] [collage]
	6/7/15	Ghost in the Machine Music, Reactor Halls, Primary, Nottingham Exhibition and performances I put together with me, Leslie Deere, Tom Mudd, Shelley Parker, tom Richards. Also a mixtape.	[mixtape] [photo]
	9-30/10/14	For Posterity – exhibition at The Auricle, Christchurch, New Zealand Found footage of a family’s audio diary from the early 1960s, plus documents of my attempts to contact them to reunite them with the tapes.
	1/10/14	AAS: Lammas Drone Silo, for Hackney Wicked festival. Large scale installation/performance with sub bass drone soundsystem, chicken feed, steam, blacklight, lasers and strapping an audience member into a stretcher.	[photos] [video]
	12/9-6/10/14	Roadside Museum | An exhibition curated by John O’Hare & Gordon Culshaw A dubplate and a spool of tape left buried for a year, alongside other artists works, were exhumed and exhibited in Venn Projects, Blackpool.
	26/7/14	AAS: Holectics – Team 1/2/3 Workshop and video installation for Fear+Trembling_, Five Years Gallery, London	[archive]
	23/7/14	The Radiophonic Laboratory of Antimatter Workshopping an audio translation of Situationist Pinot Gallizio’s ‘industrial’ painting process into abstract audio. Broadcast for SoundFjord / concertzender Radio in Netherlands.
	27/2/14	sound.art, Tin Tabernacle, London Group exhibition, showing a version of And A Word Carries Far: an installation using reverb of a space to alter a participant’s voice as they read from a text.
	09/13 – 03/20	Experimental Sound Art, Mary Ward Centre, London An evening class in various aspects of soundmaking, installation, recording and performance.	[archive] [audio]
	13/4/13	Residency, open studio, workshop and performance at The Penhouse, Manchester Making new collages & audio recordings on a week long residency.	[release] [video]
	12/6/12	Crystal World Laboratory participant Participant in the 5 day Crystal World open laboratory, which was curated by Martin Howse, Jonathan Kemp and Ryan Jordan.	[archive]
	6/6/12	Music By The Metre A audio analogy to Situationist Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio’s industrial paintings, also sold by the metre. Market stall, recordings and a video. An ongoing project.	[video]
	15/3/12	For Posterity, SoundFjord, London Found footage of a family’s audio diary from the early 1960s, plus documents of my attempts to contact them to reunite them with the tapes. First showing.	[audio] [photo] [photo]
	2/12/11	Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone – NTS Radio Radio show on NTS. Intially fortnightly on a friday morning with lots of live guests and features, now in the early hours of Tuesday mornings usually with a continuous mix of odd sounds, mostly brand new releases.	[archive] [blog]
	1/11/11	From Oramics to Electronica – The History of Electronic Music, Science Museum I was one of 12 musician co-curators who helped advise museum staff on items to include in this exhibition.
	8/9/11	Loss Shines a Light on What Remains, AC Institute, New York An exhibition of some of my installations at this NYC gallery – including inviting people to smash up reocrds I’d initially bought for DJing with.	[photo] [photo]
	10/8/11	Your Luton Symphony – public installation for Luton Festival 10 turntables with different field recordings from around Luton, playable by visitors individually or in combination.	[audio] [photo] [photo]
	11/7/11	Y Gwylwyr (Sentinels) – installation for RHÔD 2011 Artist group show and mini-residency. My installation was turning two bird houses into a big solar-powered stereo listening device.	[audio] [photo]
	20/4/11	And a word carries far, installation aboard the Light Vessel 21, Gillingham Kent During this short residency I made a piece using the reverberant air tanks from the ship’s fog horn system – reader’s voices would be played back inside the tank, picked up and returned to their ears. The book is Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim.	[audio] [photo] [photo]
	3/3/11	Time Pieces – group show at Peter Scott Gallery, University of Lancaster showing my installation Untitled (Tape Ghosts)
	2010 – 2014	Open Sound Group – workshop series and netlabel Improv workshop for artists working with sound, which led to further worksops. I released the recordings from them all, and later releases by other artists too.	[archive]
	17/9/10	Visitor Centre installation / Rea Garden artist in residence Two month residency in a derelict plot of a former shellac warehouse in Digbeth Birmingham: DIY archaeology, sound installation, audio guide, workshops.	[archive]
	2/9/10	A Site of No Special interest – group exhibition, Solihul Arts Complex Former atists working on the Rea Garden site, including my installation Three Artifacts, made of 3 field recording dubplates on record players.	[photo]
	8/7/10	Mill24 – group show for residents of Salford’s Islington Mill over 24 hours I made sounds and did experiments in and around my studio, documented it over time and did a little performance at the end.	[archive]
	6/4/10	Untitled (Tape Ghosts) installation – for Lost Language exhibition, Kraak, Manchester 3 channel audio from 3 modified tape units, playing back a composition of home recordings of people singing from found tapes.	[photo]
	1/7/09	Long Railing – video shown at Krumm, Outlet, Manchester Running a drum stick along a long railing – like a physical score in the landscape.	[video]