Events

ONE WORK | 'Aideen Doran, Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking'

Part of ONE WORK

25 November 2020
7.30–8.30pm

Online

Woman standing at a podium. The woman has short hair and is wearing glasses and a green shirt.
Karen Brodine, reading. Image courtesy of Red Letter Press.

For the next event in the ONE ARTIST | ONE WORK series Aideen Doran will discuss her recent audio work Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking (2018 – 2020).

Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking comprises a polyphonic chorus of voices reading extracts from the poetry collection of the same name by the Marxist-feminist writer Karen Brodine. Brodine completed this work between 1978 and 1987 in San Francisco, supporting herself as a typesetter while also working as a political activist. Subtitled a collection of work poems’, they trace connections between the alienation of the mechanized workday and marginalised experiences of class, gender and race.

The readers speak Brodine’s passionate and fiery words over a shifting backdrop of digital tones and beats mixed from distorted field recordings of office equipment. Sometimes the voices speak in precarious harmony, as when they chant down the hours and minutes until lunch break. Other times they overlap, talk over one another, interrupt and repeat one another. Together they attempt to speak of what work takes from workers’ minds and bodies, and what it can’t: solidarity, intelligence, dreams. These things are the noise, the interference that erupts from the edges of discourse to haunt the orderly running of capital and labour.

The work is available on Aideen’s website where it is accompanied by a text by James Clegg. Additional editing and mixing for this work was completed by sound artist and composer Joe Howe.

The event take place online and will be transcribed live.

Over the last few months LUX Scotland has been holding a series of online events led by artists. For each event, an artist based in Scotland presents a recent work and talks through how the work came into being. Each artist has been joined by one of the LUX Scotland team and up to 40 online participants.

How it works

Our online events will take place on Zoom. The event will be live transcribed using otter​.ai live transcription. We will also use the chat space to post questions /​comments being raised by the guest artist so they can be referred back to.

We ask that all participants are respectful and listen to the facilitators and other participants. An attendee list will be circulated to all participants in advance of each event. At the beginning of events we will introduce the guest artist and invite participants to briefly introduce themselves and their reason for joining. During the event discussion, we ask that one person speaks at a time and that you type hi’ in the chat to indicate you want to contribute. A member of the LUX Scotland team will keep a track of who wishes to contribute and will direct the conversation to you. You may also wish to use the chat space to type your question or comment, should this be preferable for you. We ask that you keep your microphones on mute until you are going to speak to ensure everyone can hear clearly. We invite you to have your cameras on, where possible, as this maintains a feeling of being together in the space.

If you require support to participate in our online events, or have any questions, please let us know by contacting us on email hidden; JavaScript is required or by phoning or texting 0739 4042 450, and we will be happy to assist.

LUX Scotland is dedicated to providing a welcoming online environment for everyone, regardless of gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, or religion or belief. Participants who do not adhere to this code of conduct and the participation guidelines will be asked to leave the event.

We welcome feedback on how these online events have been organised and facilitated in order to improve them as we go forward, in acknowledgment that this is a learning curve and adjustment period for us all. An evaluation form will be circulated at the end of the event along with any references, links or materials brought up during the discussion.

Aideen Doran

Aideen Doran (she/​her) is an artist from Ireland, living in Scotland.

Her work addresses structures and systems of power, labour and the production of knowledge in an increasingly digital world. Aideen works primarily with video and sound, focusing on moments of societal transformation or historical trauma, using non-linear narrative forms and the alienation effect to make familiar forms and images feel strange.

Part of ONE WORK

ONE WORK is a series of online events that focus closely on a single work. These generous discussions provide an opportunity for an artist to present a recent work and talk through how the work came into being. Each work is available as a month-long online screening, followed by a specially commissioned written response that serves as documentation of both the work and the discussion.

Learn more