Storm Machine, 2025 - Louise Ashcroft with Farmer Glitch.
Multichannel Video Installation with speaker sculptures made of reclaimed parasols and trash tech. Originally shown at Custom House Exeter (2025), film with captions exhibited at UCL East in 2026.
Satellite works included:
TrashGPT - poems I made from remixing the recycling paper mountain (see below).
and an audio interview with staff in who work in the materials reclamation facility, sorting the rubbish into reusable matter.
TrashGPT - poems I made from remixing the recycling paper mountain (see below).
and an audio interview with staff in who work in the materials reclamation facility, sorting the rubbish into reusable matter.
|
Audio Interview with staff who sort the recycling:
|
This installation was made for a show called PileUp! at Exeter Custom House - the epicentre of Exeter's histories of trade, extraction, globalisation and colonialism. The show also featured new works by artist Freya Gabie and was organised by Paula Crutchlow, Volkhardt Muller and Stuart Crewes as part of their ongoing creative residency at Custom House. I teamed up with Stephen Ives (aka Farmer Glitch) to learn how to work with junk electronics. The result was an exhibition and a series of workshops.
Storm Machine (pictured) is an audiovisual installation made almost entirely of waste: Reclaimed parasols and umbrellas from the local tip, reclaimed speaker parts, reclaimed TVs, waste wiring, a landfill BBQ, electronics, and audiovisuals gleaned from visits to the Materials Reclamation Facility where green bin recycling is sorted by hand and machines. Even the soundscape was 'scavenged' from the psyches of participants during workshops where they translated their experiences of storms into abstract improvised scores using e-waste, junk and electronics.
The objects on the chair with the blue parasol attached are all mic-ed up so live improvised noise can be added to the scene by visitors. Rather than learning facts and figures about recycling or ecological breakdown, we wanted to let people feel resource exhaustion and transport them to the storm-like landscape of the recycling centre via the noisy psychological space of participants' storm memories. The upright screen showed a film made in the recycling warehouse and the screen lying on its back had close-ups from the footage manipulated physically using an off-cut of acrylic mirror which mutated the deluge of packaging shaking on the sorting machine into mesmerising rhythmic patterns.
The research for this show was informed by public workshops and trips to the Materials Reclamation Facility and tips.
I also made an audio documentary interviewing the recycling facility's staff team which was exhibited in the exhibition reading room, and an anthology of poems using words found in the recycling warehouse's vast mountain of paper - which is full of stories and info, like a collective diary of the city. I came to think of the paper pile as a 'TrashGPT' generative AI-like dataset from which infinite collaged poems could be made.
"On research trips to Exeter City Council’s Materials Reclamation Facility, artists Louise Ashcroft & Farmer Glitch were transfixed by the enormous green sorting machine, with its juddering, bouncy chutes and conveyors, and the turbulent ‘weather’ of sensation it brings to the warehouse. Their multimedia sculpture takes you to the centre of the machine’s darkly sublime storm – a sculptural entanglement of e-waste and audio-visuals, with a soundscape made with participants of ‘storm machine’ sound workshops using electronics and trash. Dive into the deluge of packaging as it surfs the commodity currents, oscillating between as ominous, thrashy, upbeat and almost-slapstick."
More info on the workshops:
Storm Machine workshop took place on 12th April 2025.
Participants worked with creative writing processes to describe storms they’ve experienced (and other 'dark sublime' times they've felt uncomfortably small in nature) and translate them into a soundscape - a 'scratch orchestra' performance of experimental instruments made from reclaimed materials sourced at the local tip. The soundscape became part of the resulting film installation, where it was played through Storm Bringer reclaimed parasols embedded with junk speakers.
Storm Machine 2 workshops took place on 10th May 2025.
Building on descriptions of stormy landscapes donated by participants in Storm Machine 1. Bringing scrap materials to life with electronics, participants summoned eerie sonic sublimes from the belly of Exeter’s waste recycling and processing plants to evoke what it feels like to be at the thunderous helm of the vast machines that keep Exeter clean, as tempestuous futures brew overhead. Participants were taught to solder pickups and resonators to ‘hack’ scrapped devices, giving them a new life as storm-bringers.
With thanks to: Exeter Canal and Quayside Trust, Goldsmiths University, Exeter City Council, CoCreate Exeter, University of Exeter, Precious Plastic Plymouth & Tavistock, Quay Words, Recycle Devon and those who donated waste wiring including Audio Gold London.
Storm Machine (pictured) is an audiovisual installation made almost entirely of waste: Reclaimed parasols and umbrellas from the local tip, reclaimed speaker parts, reclaimed TVs, waste wiring, a landfill BBQ, electronics, and audiovisuals gleaned from visits to the Materials Reclamation Facility where green bin recycling is sorted by hand and machines. Even the soundscape was 'scavenged' from the psyches of participants during workshops where they translated their experiences of storms into abstract improvised scores using e-waste, junk and electronics.
The objects on the chair with the blue parasol attached are all mic-ed up so live improvised noise can be added to the scene by visitors. Rather than learning facts and figures about recycling or ecological breakdown, we wanted to let people feel resource exhaustion and transport them to the storm-like landscape of the recycling centre via the noisy psychological space of participants' storm memories. The upright screen showed a film made in the recycling warehouse and the screen lying on its back had close-ups from the footage manipulated physically using an off-cut of acrylic mirror which mutated the deluge of packaging shaking on the sorting machine into mesmerising rhythmic patterns.
The research for this show was informed by public workshops and trips to the Materials Reclamation Facility and tips.
I also made an audio documentary interviewing the recycling facility's staff team which was exhibited in the exhibition reading room, and an anthology of poems using words found in the recycling warehouse's vast mountain of paper - which is full of stories and info, like a collective diary of the city. I came to think of the paper pile as a 'TrashGPT' generative AI-like dataset from which infinite collaged poems could be made.
"On research trips to Exeter City Council’s Materials Reclamation Facility, artists Louise Ashcroft & Farmer Glitch were transfixed by the enormous green sorting machine, with its juddering, bouncy chutes and conveyors, and the turbulent ‘weather’ of sensation it brings to the warehouse. Their multimedia sculpture takes you to the centre of the machine’s darkly sublime storm – a sculptural entanglement of e-waste and audio-visuals, with a soundscape made with participants of ‘storm machine’ sound workshops using electronics and trash. Dive into the deluge of packaging as it surfs the commodity currents, oscillating between as ominous, thrashy, upbeat and almost-slapstick."
More info on the workshops:
Storm Machine workshop took place on 12th April 2025.
Participants worked with creative writing processes to describe storms they’ve experienced (and other 'dark sublime' times they've felt uncomfortably small in nature) and translate them into a soundscape - a 'scratch orchestra' performance of experimental instruments made from reclaimed materials sourced at the local tip. The soundscape became part of the resulting film installation, where it was played through Storm Bringer reclaimed parasols embedded with junk speakers.
Storm Machine 2 workshops took place on 10th May 2025.
Building on descriptions of stormy landscapes donated by participants in Storm Machine 1. Bringing scrap materials to life with electronics, participants summoned eerie sonic sublimes from the belly of Exeter’s waste recycling and processing plants to evoke what it feels like to be at the thunderous helm of the vast machines that keep Exeter clean, as tempestuous futures brew overhead. Participants were taught to solder pickups and resonators to ‘hack’ scrapped devices, giving them a new life as storm-bringers.
With thanks to: Exeter Canal and Quayside Trust, Goldsmiths University, Exeter City Council, CoCreate Exeter, University of Exeter, Precious Plastic Plymouth & Tavistock, Quay Words, Recycle Devon and those who donated waste wiring including Audio Gold London.
