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louise barnell

HE Lecturer

Role

I teach on the BA Music performance programme. I lead the songwriting module for first year students which practically unpacks the fundamentals of songwriting and music theory by creating musical works and reflecting on them using genre conventions and techniques. I also lead on DAW skills which aims to develop student skills in using computer software to create and record their own music.

Research areas

My work is based on my research into 'Live Dreaming'. This started in 2019, when I received DYCP funding from Arts Council England. With this, I created an immersive performance methodology and intense explosion of sensory experimentation and melting matter. I am currently supported by an M4C funded practice-led PhD at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire & UoB. This research into ‘Live Dreaming’ approaches musical performance & dreaming as having the same functions - to help us regulate & wayfind. I question how alienated & marginalised bodies can reorientate themselves using entangled webs of technology, dreams & matter in musical performance. I have a squishy, visceral, immersive approach to music-making, that I call ‘Neuroqueer Radical Musicking’ (Walker 2021, Small 2011).This is inspired by Deep Listening (Oliveros, 1975) & reconsiders my body as a mirror. I reflect & refract parallel states of dreaming & performance with shapeshifting, sculpted re-useable materials & immersive audience experience.

More about my research is here https://pgr-studio.co.uk/pgr_profile/lou-barnell/

External activity

View my work:

loubarnell.co.uk/about
Or www.instagram.com/loubarnell

I am an award-winning vocalist, sound and performance artist, one of Sound and Music's New Voices 2022 Composers, and one of Manchester Jazz Festival's Hothouse Residents 2023.
I was winner of the 2021 Oram Awards, supported by The PRS Foundation and BBC Radiophonic Institute in recognition of innovation in sound and technology.
My music communicates my synaesthetic experience of sound, hyperfocus and sensory overload as a neurodivergent woman. I create constellations of materials, wearable music technology, voice and movement.

My works have been released on Accidental Records, The Lumen Lake, Pearlhome Records, Doitthissen Records, Earlid, Linear Obsessional Records and The Women Composers

I have had airplay on NTS Radio, BBC Radio 6, (Stuart Maconie's Freakzone), Resonance FM, Soho Radio, Super Sonic Podcast, BBC Radio 3 (Corey Mwamba's Freeness and Elizabeth Alker's Unclassified) BBC Merseyside, Resonance FM (Bad Punk Radio) and Resonance Extra.

My composition commissions include MODRO ÇRNILO/ BLUE INK in collaboration with Choreographer Enya Belak which toured across Europe with Plesni Teater (Slovenia), Croatian Cultural Center & Port of Dance (Croatia), Kunstraum Nestroyhof, Tanzhafen & Tanzhuasen Festivals, (Austria), Black Box Festival (Bulgaria) and THE ARTIST which toured the UK with Filskit Theatre and New Theatre Royal. My commission FRAU LEHMANN a composition for multimedia and Twitter premiered at Yarmonics Festival in 2020. I premiered the ‘Live Dreaming’ piece COMFORT ME OFTEN at the FIX 21 Biennale in Belfast, later performed at the 2021 Oram Awards Ceremony at Supersonic Festival. My work TERRESTRIAL CIRCUITS was exhibited at the MUSLAB International Exhibition of Electroacoustic Music, (Mexico)

I've played at Supernormal Festival, IKLECTIKA Festival, Supersonic Festival, manchester jazz festival industry showcase, The Royal Academy of Arts, Café Oto, APT Gallery, The Freud Museum, and the Bloomsbury Festival with Luke Jerram’s moon installation, and a residency in St Augustines Tower, Hackney, with Breathing Space Collective.

Other selected performances include Accidental Theatre (Belfast) Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin (Derry) Romantso (Athens) Vrooom (Rotterdam), University of Tubingen (Germany) Sonorities Festival (Belfast), University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) Festival of Performing Arts (Oxford Brookes), Other Worlds festival (Blackpool).

Sponsors and collaborators

I collaborate with artist Anna Homler I am a vocalist with Emergence Collective an improvised process music ensemble LMB, a sound and movement project with composer Lisa Busby. I am a member of Breathing Space Collective.

Course(s) I teach on