New sonic work by Ain Bailey, Cavendish Arts Science Fellow at Girton College 2022
This immersive electroacoustic composition incorporates the bleeps, pings, drones and other-worldly sounds of different labs and equipment at the Cavendish Laboratory for Physics, with live vocals by Maggie Siôn.
The work is Ain Bailey’s response to time spent visiting the Cavendish Laboratory and meeting a wide range of physicists during the Fellowship.
The Cavendish Arts Science Fellowship
The annual Cavendish Arts Science Fellowship is delivered through a partnership between Girton College and Cavendish Arts Science, an initiative of the Cavendish Laboratory for Physics, thanks to the vision and generous support of Girton alumna Dr Una Ryan OBE (1963).
The Fellowship is designed to support artists to develop thought-provoking ideas through engagement with physicists and those in other fields, and experiment with new approaches to their practice that are transformative and push boundaries.
The Cavendish Arts Science programme creates collective encounters between art and science that explore the world, our humanity, and our place in the world. We support artistic work that questions traditional centring of voices and ways of knowing. Our programme creates new spaces to re-imagine material and immaterial universes.
The Cavendish Arts Science Fellowship at Girton College is a unique collaborative opportunity open to artists internationally and not confined to any single aesthetic, theme or medium. The selected artist brings alternative ways of knowing the world, artistic practices immersed in communities that are not privileged in the mainstream, and an enthusiasm to collectively imagine new possibilities.
Our inaugural Cavendish Arts Science Fellow, experimental filmmaker Logan Dandridge, brought specific interests in memory, non-linear time and Black experience to his dialogues with physicists at the Cavendish Laboratory and fellows at Girton College. Artist and composer Ain Bailey, our current fellow, brings her interest in multi-channel sound, architectural acoustics and the constellation of sounds that form individual and community identities, to her encounters.
For more information please visit www.cavendish-artscience.org.uk
Ain Bailey
Ain Bailey is a composer, artist and DJ, based in London.
She was selected as the Cavendish Art Science Fellow at Girton College 2022-23 from an international open call.
Her practice explores sonic autobiographies and the constellation of sounds that form individual and community identities. Her compositions encompass field recordings and found sounds and are often inspired by reflections on silence and absence, feminist activism and architectural acoustics, particularly of urban spaces. She has developed numerous collaborations with performance, sonic and visual artists, creating multi-channel and mixed media installations and soundtracks for moving images, live performance and dance.
Previous work includes Oh Adelaide (2010), a collaboration with artist Sonia Boyce (Tate Britain, the Whitechapel Gallery, The Kitchen, New York); The Range (Eastside Projects, Birmingham); RE:Respite (Transmission Gallery, Glasgow); And We’ll Always Be A Disco In The Glow Of Love (Cubitt Gallery, London); Atlantic Railton within architect Sumayya Vally’s 2021 Serpentine Pavillion and as part of the Listening To The City sound installation programme; Version (Wysing Arts Centre); Untitled (Our Wedding)(CCS Bard, NYC); Trioesque (Bruckenmusik Festival, Cologne) and Remember To Exhale (2020) created with Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski (Studio Voltaire, London as part of their Desperate Living programme). She was commissioned by Art Basel Miami Beach to compose for the Soundscape Park.
