Site Built

Oliver Getley

Site Built is an exhibition and creative research project presented by Oliver Getley responding to the area of Mabgate. Site Built consists of kinetic sound devices and sculptures made from self-built circuitry and deconstructed washing machine parts sourced from the local area. 

The exhibition is the conclusion of a series of interpretive processes explored by the artist and a group of Music Performance students from Leeds City College. Beginning with two workshops in which the students and artist investigated and reinterpreted the soundscape of Mabgate through a listening walk, instrument design, score-making and improvisational performances. Following these sessions, the artist has continued to reconstruct these materials into the form of kinetic sound devices and sculptures, mirroring the experimental and improvisational methods used in the earlier workshops. In this sense, Site Built can be understood as a re-physicalisation of Mabgate developed through several layers of interpretation. 

Oliver Getley has had an ongoing interest in the Mabgate area since the closure and subsequent movement of his studio space in 2019, FIIK, formerly known as Lady Beck and Enjoy before that. 

 Oliver Getley is an interdisciplinary artist and organiser based in Leeds. He is interested in artist-led and DIY activity as a political approach to culture-making and exploring alternative learning methods. His practice is research and concept driven, often working project-to-project to explore experimental and emergent creative approaches which span a variety of themes and production methods. These methods regularly include, sound, sculpture, installation, performativity, collaboration, site-responsive action and exhibition-making. A recurrent interest of his practice has been the creation of performative gestures and devices which interrogate the process of their own making and evoke ideas around reverse engineering and technological imaginaries. 

olivergetley.co.uk 
 
Friday 5 May - Friday 2 June
Opening Night: Thursday 4 May 5-8pm

@o_getley