About Charlie Usher
Charlie Usher (1987, BE/UK) is a composer whose work often uses structural and formal protocols to interrogate cognitive, somatic and affective ways we relate to information we hear.
His works are realised for and via installations of live instruments and/or loudspeakers situated in acoustics not typically considered adapted to hosting sound.
His solo and collaborative work has been installed and performed over Europe and North America, including La Loge, Q-O2, KANAL-Centre Pompidou Brussels, Kaaistudio's, Beursschouwburg, and Galerie DuflonRacz, STUK, BUDA, De Singel, La Becque CH, Berliner Festspiele Berlin, e-flux screening room NYC, Kunsthaus Zurich, Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz Vienna, Lincoln Center NYC, South Bank Centre London, and in festivals including Oscillation Brussels and MaerzMusik Berlin, in addition to multiple US and UK tours and BBC broadcasts and commissions. The most recent collaborators include Federico Protto, Wang Consulting, Slow Reading Club, Emma Lloyd, Aubrey Birch and Adler Murada.
Since 2021, with Henry Andersen and Sabrina Seifried, he runs Winona, a project space in Brussels with iterations further afield in Austria, the Netherlands and Germany. Recently shown artists include Marina Pinsky, Chris Reinecke, Kathi Hofer, Anna van der Ploeg with David Daniels, amongst many others.
His debut album is being prepared for late 2024.
About Charlie Usher’s 'Mixed Feelings'
The slow gaze, a touch scroll, a sharp zoom, a jump cut / Juliana Spahr: things of each possible relation hashing against one another / Chris Messina: it's born of the internet, and owned by no one / Radical Software: an x within a circle, the Xerox mark, the antithesis of copyright, which means DO copy / Genesis P-Orridge: Information is like a bank - [...] rob the bank!'
'Mixed feelings' is a multi-format group listening performance, a context for heart-on-sleeve cultural samples, speech, music or field recordings, detailed montage protocols, DIY sound systems, Leslie speakers, live instruments, and horizontal time structures.
This version is created especially for the occasion, the low-lying installation of sculptural loudspeakers installed in the modular architecture of M Leuven’s Forum space steadily unfolding extracts ripped from hundreds of disparate found and composed sources, ranging from speech, music, relaxation tapes, and field-recordings.
This performance will last for around one and a half hour. The audience is free to take a seat, lay down, enter and exit the space at any time, but your presence for the whole duration is warmly encouraged.
