Fading Out of Dead Air (Transmissions for the Necropolis) is the third and final part of writer and performance artist Martin O’Brien’s trilogy as Writer in Residence at Whitechapel Gallery.
Following inaugural performance An Ambulance To The Future (The Second Chance) in May and July’s large scale Overture For The End (An Ashen Place), December’s new work continues to explore
mortality through ideas of immortality.
Taking its inspiration from hospital radio and pop culture references to ghosts heard only through analogue technologies, Fading Out of Dead Air (Transmissions for the Necropolis) explores the
human desire to communicate and record. In a strange and eerie landscape, O’Brien shuffles around, recording and playing half-heard voices and unholy sounds. The work will take the form of a durational performance-installation, open to visit during the gallery open times, which on Thursday, December 14th will be from 11am-9pm.
I’ve always loved the radio. From listening to local radio as a kid, to long stays in the hospital, with hospital radio playing all day. From Saturday football commentary to waking up in the middle of the night with strange stories playing out through the airwaves. I listen all day every day. I’ve started to become interested in the conceptual possibility of radio as a ‘visual’ art. I want to experiment with the ways that images might translate to or produce sound.
My voice and the use of recording sound have been important parts of the first two pieces in the
Martin O’Brien
residency trilogy. Each piece has involved recording on tapes as part of the process of the performances. I wanted to make a piece where voice, and sound were at the centre recording was
the main action. The trilogy has been dedicating to exploring mortality through the idea of immortality. I was asking what we can learn about life and death by thinking about the possibility of living forever. As part of that, I have looked at a lot of pop cultural representations of ghosts. I am interested in the films where ghosts can only be heard through radios and other recording technology. I want to capture that spooky feeling through the radio. It’s like a hospital radio show for the dead, or for the living by the dead
Martin will be joined at times, during this 10-hour durational performance, by invited guest performers, details to be announced.
Martin O’Brien is an artist and zombie. He works across performance, writing and video art. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants and performance processes in order to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected.
Originally from Burnley, Lancashire, Martin has shown work throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, and is well known for his solo performances and collaborations with the legendary LA artist
and dominatrix Sheree Rose. He has shown work at Tate Britain in 2020 and the ICA, London in 2021
where his week-long season of performances sold out. He is both winner of the Philip Leverhulme
Prize for Visual and Performing Arts 2022 and writer in residence at Whitechapel Gallery throughout 2023. At Whitechapel, the first two works in this current trilogy sold out all advance tickets ahead of time, generating considerable interest and comment.
Martin has cystic fibrosis and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. In 2018, the book Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O’Brien was published by Live Art Development Agency. His work has been featured in The Guardian, Frieze Magazine, on BBC Radio and Sky Arts television He is currently Senior Lecturer in Live Art at Queen Mary University of London.
Martin O’Brien, Fading Out of Dead Air (Transmissions for the Necropolis), Thursday 14th December, 11am-9pm, Whitechapel Gallery whitechapelgallery.org/fading-out-of-dead-air-transmissions-for-the-necropolis/
Booking link: www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/
