Lia Mice (she/her) • Multidisciplinary Artist
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Recent projects...
January 2024
I was invited to perform at the Baba Yagas Hut takeover of IKLECTIK on the 19th of January 2024 to bid farewell to the Old Paradise Yard, Waterloo location of this iconic DIY venue. For this show I played songs from Sweat Like Caramel, joined onstage by master percussion improvisor Andrew Booker who performed my new instrument The Catastrophone. Watch the full set above!
October 2023
I performed live at The Albany, London on the 28th of October 2023 with Liz Melina Godoy Nieto performing my new large instrument The Catastrophone (thanks Gardyloo for the photo!). You can read about The Catastrophone HERE. It's my newest large instrument for performing as part of my live set. It's 2 metres wide and tall and has 12 performance tiles that are made of recycled paper. Cat collages actually. Hence the name The Catastrophone.
March 2023
Chaos Bells was a finalist at the 2023 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. It was a huge honour to bring Chaos Bells to Atlanta USA this March to show it at this infamous instrument design competition. While I don't believe anything to do with music or design is ever a competition, it was an amazing experience. I loved meeting the other instrument designers and doing a few guest lectures at Georgia Tech School of Tech. Watch this new Chaos Bells video made for the Guthman Awards! Thanks Andrew Booker and Oh Kestrel Film! And watch back the live stream of the 2023 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition award ceremony concert here.
September 2022
Chaos Bells was on display at the V&A Museum, London for the Digital Design Weekend, a free exhibition as part of the London Design Festival. Thanks to everyone to came along and played the instrument. Special thanks to Kunal Singhal who composed a Chaos Bells performance just for this event. What an incredible experience.
May 2022
My new album Sweat Like Caramel was released on May 20th on Objects Ltd, an amazing label I have admired for several years. I made the album art myself out of a collage of flowers and stars, and a photo taken by Eleni Parousi with hair, makeup and styling by Nat Sharp. We took this photo while making the music video for the title track. Watch the video here. Download the album via Bandcamp.
April 2022
I'm performed a live set, joined onstage by Odd Lust on Chaos Bells, at Sonorities Festival, Belfast on Friday 8th of April. While in Belfast I will also gave a talk about Chaos Bells and the research I have done with the instrument at the Sonorities Symposium Session at SARC on Saturday 9th of April. Thanks to the kind SARC folk for organizing this festival it was a blast!!!
March 2022
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I recently played a few shows in Coventry and Birmingham, joined on stage by Odd Lust performing Chaos Bells.
December 2021
Photo by Chris Turner.
I am delighted to announce that I have won an Oram Award. Huge congratulations to the other 2021 winners Venus Ex Machina, Lou Barnell, Magz Hall, Vivienne Griffin and Maria Sappho.
For the awards ceremony I created an experimental pop video work that includes 2 new songs plus a performance on Chaos Bells - my new large-scale digital musical instrument. The awards ceremony hosted by Supersonic Festival will be live-streamed on the 9th of December via this link.
November 2021
Photo of Lia Mice in front of Chaos Bells taken by Lizzie Wilson.
Chaos Bells was featured on Music From The Augmented Instruments Lab - a concert that was live-streamed on the 23rd of November. The concert featured me introducing my new large-scale digital musical instrument Chaos Bells, 10 performances with Chaos Bells by London-based experimental electronic musicians, as well as other A/V performances and interviews with instrument designers. Watch back the concert here!
September 2021
My new large-scale digital musiucal instrument Chaos Bells was premiered via on online-streamed concert presented by Chaos Theory on the 20th of September. Joining me on two improvised live performances was London-based synthesist and Chaos Bells performer Blue Loop (Emma Hall). Thanks to everyone who tuned in live! Watch back the concert via this link to see new animated works by Ai Di Ti, a haunting A/V collab between The SeeR and SCALD, and Q&As between CHAOS THEORY and all the artists.
July 2021
Photo by Jordan Benedetti
I was invited to perform live at The Barbican for the Young Barbican Night: Jean Dubuffet on Thursday 15th of July. I performed a 2-hour improvised live set using Abelton Live, Push 2 and my voice in response to the art of Jean Dubuffet. My music was amplified throughout the gallery, soundtracking the Jean Dubuffet exhibition for the evening. This project was a lot of fun! I find Dubuffet's artwork and DIY / self-taught approach to art inspiring and really enjoyed creating 2 hours of music amongst his work. More images from the event are here.
May 2021
Here's a mini-documentary on my large instrument Prism Bell. I edited this footage together because Bela invited me to show this instrument at Maker Music Festival 15-16 May 2021. Thanks to Janine A'Bear who can be seen in this video performing the Prism Bell with me on stage at Supernormal Festival and Islington Assembly Hall. More info on the Prism Bell can be found here.
March 2021
On the 5th of March, I released the score that I composed for the psychological thriller A Quiet Room In Walthamstow. The score was created in its entirety using recordings of violin and viola that were mangled using the techniques that I usually use for creating experimental dance music. The score is available exclusively on Bandcamp via this link.
September 2020
I am pleased to announce that I will be at Ars Electronica again this year. I'm performing a live set on my new large instrument THE PRISM BELL on Sunday 13th of September at 12:00 noon London time. Tune in via this link. Thanks for inviting me back to Ars Electronica. I am looking forward to another mind-blowing year of interactive art!
July 2020
WILD Day In Festival invited me to be part of their online streaming festival on July 11 2020, so I created this short documentary about my work and how my sculptural digital instruments I perform onstage influenced me to use the same instrument design technology to work with the OHMI Trust to help develop a One-Handed Violin. WILD Day In was an amazing festival. Thanks for inviting me to participate! Watch the short documentary here.
May 2020
Viscera invited me to contribute a track on the Galactic Service Broadcasting Vol 1 compilation to help raise money for the NHS. My track is a remix I made of a collaborative track I made with Flies+Flies called Bubblegum. Get the compilation from Bandcamp. Thank you NHS and Viscera!
April 2020
FutureMusic "The Track" asked me to do a video interview breaking down how I created "Which Memories Will Make It?" (from The Sampler As A Time Machine LP). It was such a pleasure to be featured on this series - I really love talking about production techniques. Photo by Joseph Branston. Watch here.
November 2019
It was fantastic to participate in a 1-week residency at Snape Maltings to develop a new surround audio work Vengeful Ghost with composer Dom Bouffard. The public showing was on 16th of November - thanks to all who attended and participated in the Q&A. Look out for future performaces of Vengeful Ghost. Vengeful Ghost is an immersive performance exploring the menacing ephemerality of invisible forces. Mining the possibilities of electric guitars, percussion, vocalisations and digital reprocessing in a multichannel space, this visceral work-in-progress blurs the lines between performance, installation and sound sculpture, honouring the electric guitar’s unique outlaw status and displacing it in a search for new shapes.
October 2019
She Makes Sounds featured me in their Under The Bonnet series. After an in-depth interview in my studio they created a fantastic breakdown of how I prepared my live set-up for my recent show at Islington Assembly Hall. Diagram by Emma Hall. Read it here.
September 2019
I recently performed at Islington Assembly Hall opening for Objekt x Ezra Miller. This was the first time the Prism Bell was performed live in London. Thanks to PRS Open Fund for the support. More about the show here. Live video of the whole performance here. Photo by Jake Davis www.hungryvisuals.co.uk
INSTRUMENT SEMATARY at the V&A Museum London for the 2019 Digital Design Weekend. More here.
I travelled to Beijing to participate in an innovative instrument design cross-cultural exchange workshop to create an augmented duxianqin. Read about it here.
INSTRUMENT SEMATARY was shown at Ars Electronica 2019 in Linz, Austria, as part of the Media and Arts Technology Campus Exhibition. Read more about the exhibition here, and about INSTRUMENT SEMATARY here.
July 2019
I'm in The Guardian talking about my One-Handed Violin project, my vision impairment & how music saved my life! Read the article here.
February + May 2019
I was honoured to be invited by The Barbican's Future Band to be Guest Artist this year, for their series of workshops under the theme Year of the Instrument. Over several weekends in February and May I led workshops with the participants (ages 8-14) in brainstorming, prototyping and performing new capacitive touch digital instruments. See the instruments designed by the participants here.
November 2018
My 3rd album The Sampler As A Time Machine is now out via Optimo Music, available on vinyl here and digital here.
October 2018
Photo by Chris Turner
Optimo invitied me to guest on their NTS show. Hear me spin an hour of the tunes that influenced The Sampler As A Time Machine here.