MICHAEL BARTHEL + SUPPORT

Ultra rare UK show from Leipzig based sound poet, performance and sound artist Michael Barthel. His first in Brighton since 2016’s Colour Out of Space Festival.

Since the early 00’s Michael Barthel has dedicated himself to a distinct form of visual, performative and auditory poetics; producing works of recorded and printed speech characterised by a brutalist and conceptually driven execution. These outputs utilise key methods of classic sound and concrete poetry to address deeply personal, sociopolitical questions surrounding art, language and history.

Barthel’s performances and recordings tend toward the barebones of unamplified voice, sometimes bolstered with additional recordings played back through small, crude handheld tape players. His texts, often written in hyper local East Berlin dialect, are read in an abrupt, insistent fashion; filled with rasping, yelping, shrill tones which drive home the non-lingual qualities of his utterances in equal parts harsh and humorous. Whether you engage with his pieces on the level of their literal dismantling of discernible language or simply as displays of sonic abstraction, there is an atmosphere to Barthel’s work that holds you in the palm of its hand for the duration.

Also performing:

Irritable Bowel
The second outing of Isa Blood’s solo outfit at an adhuman night. Many thanks for joining us. As always, we shouldn’t spend too much time wondering what to expect as the element of shock and surprise is key to the world of Irritable Bowel. Sleep comfortably in the knowledge, however, that lofi voices, noises and recorded sound plus a boundless streak of visual theatre are likely to be present and correct.

Xelis de Toro
Very happy to finally get XdT on board for one of our gigs. A Galician writer & performer based in the UK, Xelis specialises in all manner of explorations for voice, writing and performance. With feet planted deeply in the twin soils of serious, theatrically/theoretically led works and seat of the pants, loose improv, he strikes us as something of creative island unto himself in an already dense and diverse Brighton.

7:00pm start
£5-£10 sliding scale entry (notaflof) – pay on the door