SPR presents: Archive in Action

Performance and discussion of Michael Nyman’s “1-100” (1975) for piano & tape feedback system, and an improvisation using replicas of Hugh Davies’ ‘Shozyg’ instruments (1968)

EMS alumni, archivists and researchers James Bulley and Ian Stonehouse will be playing and discussing two works in progress based around repertoire and instruments from Goldsmiths Special Collections. Michael Nyman’s “1-100” (1975) for piano and tape feedback system will be followed by an improvisation using replicas of Hugh Davies’ ‘Shozyg’ instruments (1968) that were commissioned for the Science Museums ‘Time Loops’ exhibition/performance events in 2024/5. The event is free to attend and takes place in RHB155, aka the EMS live room.

Ian Stonehouse is an experimental sound artist, musician, researcher and archivist based at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was Head of the Electronic Music Studios from 1999 to 2019 and taught at Goldsmiths from 2004 to 2024. He currently works as an Experimental Music Archivist, researching and caring for collections including those of Daphne Oram, Lily Greenham and Hugh Davies. His archival practice often connects historical materials, instruments and ideas with contemporary performance and experimentation. As a performer, he has worked with artists including Sebastian Lexer, Tania Chen, Ingrid Plum, Bill Thompson. Ian is currently writing a biography of artist, composer and sound poet Lily Greenham.

James Bulley is an artist, composer and researcher whose practice explores sound, space and the more-than-human world, working across installation, performance, immersive sound and sculpture. With PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, his performance and composition work has been presented internationally, including the world premiere of Daphne Oram’s Still Point at the BBC Proms with Shiva Feshareki and the London Contemporary Orchestra, and performances of Longplayer at the Roundhouse. He also works extensively with spatial sound, including collaborations with Marshmallow Laser Feast and the National Trust.

Together, Stonehouse and Bulley have worked on a number of projects connecting archival research with contemporary performance. In 2024, Bulley co-curated Lily Greenham: An Art of Living, a major retrospective at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe, Germany, with Stonehouse contributing as consultant researcher and sound archivist. In 2025, they worked with Jake Tyler to reconstruct Hugh Davies’s ShoZyg instruments from original materials and Davies’s designs. The reconstructed instruments were used in Time Loops, a performance and exhibition project at the Science Museum in London, including a new work by Gavin Bryars. They have also co-curated a programme of Daphne Oram’s work at Auditorium Ansermet in Geneva.

Dates & times

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