Join us for the Cyber Cafe Closing Party featuring a live performance from artists Antonio Roberts and Lucy Cheesman with special guest HarleyLikesMusic.
Lucy Cheesman and Antonio Roberts present a live rendition of Dial Up Dream. Manipulating and remixing audio and video samples created in collaboration with Site Gallery’s Society of Explorers, they will create an audiovisual landscape that evokes memories of the early internet and old technologies.
By utilising modern analogue modular video hardware produced by LZX Industries, Antonio Roberts will create live visuals that are reminiscent of both the lo-fi psychedelic screensavers from Windows 95/98 computers and the distorted glitched signals from analogue TVs. Lucy Cheesman will use the open-source live coding language TidalCycles to programme hardware synths and scramble samples into a Myspace-era videogame soundtrack.
There will also be an immersive performance from HarleyLikesMusic. Channelling the raw energy of the Game Boy’s sound chip, Harley’s performances are characterised by hypnotic rhythms, infectious melodies and body-shaking basslines.
The Cyber Cafe exhibition was designed by Society of Explorers incollaboration with artists Antonio Roberts and Lucy Cheesman. Society of Explorers are a collective of young people aged 14 – 19 who meet weekly at the gallery to collaborate with artists, create their own artwork, and help to develop Site Gallery’s programme.
Artists
Antonio Roberts
Antonio Roberts is an artist, musician and curator based in Birmingham, UK. His practice is concerned with how the misuse of digital technology impacts people of colour and other marginalised groups. His recent work focuses on the depiction of Black people in digital media, ranging from stereotypical misrepresentations in early video games to modern algorithms and AI codifying existing biases.
His (Algo|Afro) Futures mentoring programme teaches live coding software as a way to address how Black people have been under/mispreresented in digital art and electronic music, despite being pivotal to its development. He is currently learning game development, with the aim to explore how immersive environments can be used as a narrative storytelling device. He is also working on his debut EP, created using a combination of live coding software and hardware synthesisers.
Lucy Cheesman
Lucy Cheesman is a sound artist, musician, producer and organiser whose work can be placed within a number of different fields, often blurring the boundary between the visual, the audible and the digital.
Lucy is a founder member of SONA (a network supporting women in Sheffield through experimental sound and digital practices) and the Yorkshire Sound Women Network. Along with her artistic practice she also makes music under the name Heavy Lifting, using software such as TidalCycles and FoxDot – open-sourced coding programmes aimed at opening up the processes of experimental music production for the benefit of the wider public.
Lucy’s involved in a wide breadth of activity across the city, and this is symptomatic of her approach to creative practices. She rigorously tests the possibilities of multiple different mediums, never settling on the prescribed way of producing art.
HarleyLikesMusic
A Sheffield local, HarleyLikesMusic channels the raw energy of the Game Boy’s sound chip to weave dynamic, bass-driven electronic music. Inspired by the city’s rich history of pioneering hard, underground sounds, Harley fuses elements of grassroots DIY culture, video game nostalgia and a curiosity for pushing technological boundaries, paying homage to the innovative spirit of the demo scene.
At the core of Harley’s music lies a passion for meticulously crafting sounds, cultivated over more than a decade of dedicated practice. Through countless hours of experimentation and performance across the globe, Harley has emerged as a respected figure within his craft.