Eavesdropper: Screening and Q&A with Kathryn Elkin, Fig-2 and Outset Scotland

Eavesdropper is a new strand of CCA programming, supported by Outset Scotland. It is a series of four events across twelve months in which we showcase key Scottish artists, delving deeper into a particular area of their practice. The format of the events and the nature of the piece presented will be determined by the artist, but each should be a unique opportunity to gain an insight into an artist’s approach to making work.

For CCA's first Eavesdropper event, Kathryn Elkin will present 'Mud', the companion performance piece to her new commission ‘The Elephants in The Room’, alongside an excerpted edit of the video. To contextualise her ongoing interest in studio performances and observances of improvisation there will also be a screening of 'Michael's Theme', her 2014 video made in residence at BBC Scotland.

Kathryn Elkin’s new commission for Fig-2 ‘The Elephants in the Room’ merges modes of improvisation with immediacy of response in the form of a collaboration between the artist and the musician Okkyung Lee. As a conversation point and a reference for Lee’s improvisation they worked through the adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony, which was famously used in Visconti’s masterpiece Death in Venice. Elkin worked with artist Lucy Parker shooting the film, with cellist Richard Thomas acting as a sound recordist. Parker and Thomas lend their own interpretations of Elkin’s intentions in documenting the sessions with Lee, each negotiating their own role in the studio set-up. Lee’s canny understanding of Elkin’s interest in the score and its extra-musical associations as well as her understanding of the dualism of her role in the film at hand - as composer and as performer/subject - makes for a broad range of collaborative harmonies and dissonances.

Following the screening of the 2 works, Kathryn will be in discussion with CCA curator Remco de Blaaij and Fig-2 curator Fatos Üstek