The Vinyl Factory and 180 Studios present REVERB @180fact

Uploaded April 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Theaster Gates, Devon Turnbulll, Caterina Barbieri, Jeremy Deller, Carsten Nicolai, Es Devlin and Virgil Abloh will feature as part of REVERB, a major multimedia exhibition exploring the intersection of art and sound curated by The Vinyl Factory, opening at 180 Studios on 23 May, 2024.

The largest show of its kind, REVERB will bring together over 100 artists and musicians working across visual arts, music, film and live performance. The exhibition will feature new site-specific audio-visual installations and sonic experiences, commissioned by The Vinyl Factory, from artists including Theaster Gates, Es Devlin, Julianknxx and Caterina Barbieri.

REVERB also features UK premieres of artworks by Kahlil Joseph, Stan Douglas, Virgil Abloh and Cecilia Bengolea, as well as installations by Jeremy Deller, William Kentridge, Nan Goldin, Hito Steyerl, Carsten Nicolai and Gabriel Moses.

Hi-Fi Listening Room Dream No.1, created by and programmed with New York artist Devon Turnbull, will create a meditative space within the exhibition to listen to vinyl with an evolving programme of unheard music, including exclusive test pressings and studio outtakes.

A wide-ranging programme of live performances and talks will also take place alongside the exhibition. A new work by Theaster Gates, Amplified, will exist as a sonic installation during the day and transform into a space that hosts live performances by night, with shows by established and emerging musicians recorded and pressed direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe.

100 vinyl records created by artists and released by The Vinyl Factory will also be on display in a new space designed by Ben Kelly. These include releases by Nan Goldin, Arthur Jafa, Pipilotti Rist, William Kentridge, Mica Levi, Marina Abramovic, Grace Jones, Yussef Dayes, Es Devlin, Fred Again, Thom Yorke, Ragnar Kjartansson, Massive Attack, Pet Shop Boys, Maurizio Cattelan, Daft Punk, The xx, Rachel Rose, Kojey Radical, Taryn Simon and more.

Tickets for REVERB will go on sale very soon – sign up for email updates here at the 180 Studios website: 180studios.com/reverb

REVERB

180 Studios
180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA
22 May – 28 September 2024

10am – 7pm, Wednesday – Sunday

The Vinyl Factory and 180 Studios present REVERB

$An Trinse - Humic Acid Regress As An Trinse, Northern Irish audiovisual artist Stephen McLaughlin reckons with the cultural history of Ireland with sound and image, mapping what he describes as “the uneasy atmospheres and silences left in the Irish psyche in the aftermath of colonial and religious repression, using archaeology and ancient history as a conduit.” Of particular interest to McLaughlin are bog fossils, specifically, the incredible preservative effects that the anaerobic environment of bogs can have in relation to natural tannic acids that result from the natural degrading of peat moss. “Bogs themselves contain a unique environment free of oxygen which prevents the growth of bacteria which would normally decompose flesh,” explains McLaughlin. “In their place are a species which degrades peat moss to form humic acid, which acts as a natural embalming environment similar to the process used when tanning leather.” This process can result in the perfect conditions for preservation, with ancient artefacts including bog wood, barrels of bog butter, entire farming landscapes enveloped by blanket bogs and bog bodies, with skin, hair and internal organs intact, having been found in incredible condition up to 5000 years after they were submerged in the wetlands. “There is a general mystery surrounding these artefacts,” continues McLaughlin, “and it is unknown whether the bodies were the result of human sacrifice, a punishment for a crime worthy of shame or honour, but they have captivated artists and thinkers as diverse and Joseph Beuys, Seamus Heaney, Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung whose feud over the meaning of these bodies inspired my earlier work, Corpses From the North. “They emerge as what Karin Sanders calls: ‘corporeal time capsules that transcend archaeology to challenge our assumptions about what we know about the past. By restoring them to the roster of cultural phenomena that force us to confront our ethical and aesthetic boundaries…excavates anew the question of what it means to be human.” It is within this frame that An Trinse explores Ireland’s violent history of colonial and religious oppression, incorporating iconography and the fossilised prehistoric culture of Ireland into his abstract excavations of cultural memory. It was during research completed as part of a collaboration with Sardinian artist Il Santo Bevitore, the same collaboration that served as the starting point for the above audiovisual work, that McLaughlin made the discovery that some of the oldest human remains unearthed in present day Northern Ireland, which date back about 5000 years, share close ancestral relatives with native Sardinians. “It is hard for the archaeological imagination not to run with this,” continues McLaughlin, “given the similar myths of giants, megalithic constructions and the concentric rings that run through both cultures’ artwork, which has been found as far away as the USA, and imagine there was some ancient network running between these cultures. Maybe it was simply through the slow process of cultural transfer, but perhaps a more mystical technology.” It’s these twin secret histories of ancient technology that McLaughlin explores in Humic Acid Regress, setting a swirling soundscape of hypnotic drones, tumbling synthesis, passages of uncanny ambience and double bass, courtesy of Maxwell Sterling, against stroboscopic fragments of 3D renderings of prehistoric sites, grainy, monochromatic fractals stamped with ancient glyphs and science fiction schematics. Mechanised, filtered footage of abandoned human settlements, as though plucked from an archive for extraterrestrial research, is superimposed with a self-generating, organic user interface, as though the artist has recovered the advanced communications technology of a lost civilisation from unknown depths, dripping with bog acid. “The piece itself was developed as the end of the current An Trinse live show that has been showing this year,” continues McLaughlin. “The backbone has remained, but what has gone over the top has been in flux, so I only recently had the idea of having Maxwell to provide strings to add some humanity to the chasms of noise.” You can catch Maxwell Sterling performing live with Stephen McLaughlin, who will provide live visuals, at Cafe Oto on December 6. An Trinse will perform live at [ADSR]4, an experimental music event showcasing new and international sonic artists. Ticket are available now. You can find An Trinse on Instagram and Bandcamp.$

Paul Institute Presents: Ruthven, Live at 180 Studios

Future Shock exhibition opens at 180 Studios with works by Caterina Barbieri, UVA, Gaika and more

Aurélien Bernard - (reed) [Feat. Shabaka Hutchings]

The Vinyl Factory and 180 Studios present REVERB – open until 28 September 2024