NAUS #1

A show of improvised electronics recorded live on board A Slice of Reality – a vertical section of an ocean going sand dredger that stands on the foreshore of the Thames at North Greenwich in London, since its placement there 25 years ago. Originally conceived of as a sound bite of lost industry to mark the turning of a millennium, the realities the ship witnesses are now very different - the high octane leisure industries of the Millennium dome and the docks, and the global finance district at Canary Wharf.

As a guardian of the Slice, Stephen Shiell is exploring and understanding the site as both a public sculpture and a private environment that sits beyond the boundaries of the usual. These radio shows are recordings of live events, happenings to explore the tensions that exist between the public and private.

Curating the series around his own love for experimental electronics and improvisation is a way for me to bring communities into this setting, a chance to celebrate an underground London culture in a place that hasn’t been commercialised or capitalised, even though it lies in the heart of these very environments.

‘Naus’ refers to the Ancient Greek word for ship, and also recalls the word nausea, a ‘ship- sickness’, that reflects the artist’s feelings towards the neo-liberalist landscape surrounding the ship. The sounds created here are a form of electronic improvised noise resistance.

This episode features Anina Hug, Andrej Bako, Lucia H Chung, 4046 Group (Matt Atkins, Regan Bowering, Lucia H Chung, John Macedo, Flynn McHardy, James Shearman, Stephen Shiell, Vicky Sparrow, Paul Watson, Tom White, Angharad Davies).

Stephen Shiell is a London-based sound artist, composer and improviser working across experimental music, radiophonic art and site-responsive process. His work explores listening as a social, ecological and political act, engaging sound as a way of understanding place, environment and human presence.