Presented daily at 12.30pm

Costume design by Isabella Carreras

Fell’s practice is grounded in the sub-cultures of electronic music, Structuralist film and contemporary philosophy with increasing focus on political themes. His works typically explore the implementation of simple systems, how they construct time, and the interplay between technical and musical frameworks.

Numb Imperatives is a performance work of indeterminate duration, consisting of up to eight performers. It follows from Fell’s ‘Focal Music’ series in which performers are instructed to follow simple patterns that transform over time in quite unusual ways. The timing patterns here are drawn from Carnatic music –the classical music of South India. At the heart of this system is the Tala, a formalized rhythmic framework drawn from movement, that produces patterns of exceptional complexity. Here Fell works with the Tala system to produce patterns that evoke a multi-stable character.

Mark Fell (Born 1966, Rotheram; lives and works in Sheffield) is a multidisciplinary artist. He studied experimental film and video at Sheffield City Polytechnic, before going on to develop interests in computational technology and synthetic sound. Since his early electronic music pieces, Fell’s practice has expanded to include moving-image works, sound and light installation, choreography, critical texts, curatorial projects and educational activities. His works have been presented at major institutions including The Serpentine (London), Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe), Artists Space (New York) and the Institute of Contemporary Art (London).