Mark Leckey’s Music & Video Lab

About Mark Leckey’s Music & Video Lab

Following on from Mark Leckey’s Music and Video Lab run with CAST Gallery, Cornwall, in summer 2022, Turner Contemporary partnered with Arts Education Exchange to deliver a Lab in Margate during In The Offing.

The initiative was designed to create a space for experimentation and discovery through video editing, music production and digital media for a group of 11 young people aged between 16–25 years. The group actively collaborated to create a series of short films with sound, led by their ideas and interests. Under the guidance of the AEE team, they developed skills in Premiere Pro, Da Vinci and Resolve, using a mixture of found footage and sound as well as recording their own.

The sessions were led by the Arts Education Exchange Team:

• Tom Postgate – Music Assistant and Tonetic Records Lead
• Joe Kondras – Music Lead
• Josh Halcro – Film Lead

Mark Leckey met the group on the first session to introduce the Lab, his practice and give a tour of In The Offing. Midway through the Lab, the group were joined by Ashley Holmes, an exhibiting artist for In The Offing who facilitated a session and gave feedback on the group’s work in progress.

The Lab took place over 6 Saturday Sessions between the 21 October – 25 November at AEE, with a film screening event at Turner Contemporary on 10 December.  The group have also worked on putting together a collage of sound and music, for Mark Leckey to play on his NTS Radio Show.

The 2023 Margate Music & Video Lab group were: David Adepoju, Eli Blake-Allan, Ellie Collins, Jimmy Cruz, Rex Eddy Moore, Caitlin Neaves, Lily Powell, Philippa Raye, Georgiana Raye, Sophie Wareham, Auden Treharne Woodall.

“A mix of archival footage and audio excerpts from Sinead O’Connor and Jimmy Carter. A piece exploring the juxtaposition of continuous partying despite the world’s ongoing problems.”

“A short piece exploring mental illness at the seaside. Using archival footage and shots on location at the Lido in Cliftonville.”

“A short documentary exploring the weird and wonderful stories of Margate. A compilation of funny, strange and sometimes baffling anecdotes by the people of Margate. Created using a mix of archival footage and footage shot on location.”

“We approached this project with the idea of wanting to express what different sounds/pieces of music can make you feel. Our goal was to experiment with how sound and visuals work hand in hand and to discover what a difference music makes to the feeling of visuals. The video aspect came from taking archived footage of a somewhat ‘mundane’ science video describing how sound works and transforming it to become something new to portray the different ways sound and music affects moods/feelings.”

“This video is a one of a kind as I have lost the original footage so there for it has become a hapax legomenon

hapax – once

GREEK legein – to say

as this is my only chance to showcase my music and video once – Hapax”

“I played peaceful piano music for the first part then had the music gradually change to become unsettling to go along with the Waterfall video.”

“For my project piece, I wanted to create something that could evoke the essence of nature, juxtaposed with human industry. There are many millions of arthropod species on earth, with insects being the largest and most varied group. Earth wide, insects currently outnumber people 1.4 billion to one. I named my video ‘Kaleidoscope’ to reflect the endless variety of colours and patterns found in the insect world. I created the sound in my piece by recording human voices and editing them until I had the desired industrial-type sounds that I wanted. Ever-expanding industry is adversely affecting the insect population on a global scale, with numbers rapidly decreasing each year. Insects are vital to the health of our ecosystem, and scientists are warning us of the danger this poses to the future of humankind.”

“I think…” was inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It made me (Georgiana) think of a world where we brought about our destruction through bombs that spread mould and spores, rather than atomic weapons.

A repeated sentiment throughout the piece is that of a person thinking, whether it is political figures or pop celebrities, I (Georgiana) wanted to capture the idea that everyone has ideas on how to stop the world from ending, but ultimately they do not succeed and do not truly understand what is at stake until the bombs drop and the world melts into a post-modern, capitalist world, much like our own, but also far removed from it, too.”

The idea occurred to me after we were talking about what the unknown could be or look like.

What it could feel to be in someone else’s shoes.

I wanted to create something that involved the feeling of fear. The feeling of being chased or trapped.

Supported by

Delivery Partner