For her audio visual performance, Night Voyager, Cryptic Artist, Ela Orleans repurposes footage of the 1969 Apollo moon mission to retell the narrative of Night Thoughts, a nine-poem cycle written by Edward Young in the 1740s. Her captivating live performance weaves theremin, violin, voice and electronics into a composition reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins and classic sci-fi movie soundtracks.

Based on her sonic fiction A Tellurian Memorandum, Sophia Loizou’s live audiovisual piece Hydro~ explores liquid sonic ecologies. Drawing from a combination of deep sea archival and aerial drone footage captured on her research expedition to Iceland, Loizou presents water as a startling figure of radically open disposition; a non-homogenised, alien biotechnology whose multivalent characteristics traverse form and species boundaries.

BEEF artist, Laura Phillips’ film Beneath The Mead: cigar.lend.shave is a speculative portrait of a place in North Bristol called Pen Park Hole. As in the pastime of caving, the film channels the intense curiosity to seek out what lies beneath the land we occupy. Combining the real and the imaginary – Phillips’ film questions what is known about this specific site and ideas of locality and home.

Ela Orleans’ Night Voyager is a Cryptic Commission, premiered in 2019 at Sonica Glasgow. This performance is supported by PRS Foundation’s Beyond Borders, a co-commissioning and touring programme run in partnership with Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Arts Council of Ireland /An Chomhairle Ealaíon.