Heading to The MAC, Belfast

We’re now in the final stretch before the first public showing of Performance Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast on 13 March 2026.

Most of the work recently has been less about adding new features and more about learning what a live piece actually needs: clarity, stability, and a shared sense of form. In rehearsal we’re trying to make the drawing feel like a real participant in the ensemble — not a background projection and not a “visualiser”, but another instrument.

At the centre of the project is MarkSynth, a drawing system built to listen and watch: it responds to acoustic sound and also to movement through space via a camera feed. That matters because the performance isn’t only sonic — it’s physical, gestural, and social. The way a band breathes together, changes intensity, or holds back is part of what makes improvisation readable.

Two ideas have become especially important as the system has grown:

• Agency — a sliding scale that shifts control between the performers (through audio and video input) and me (through the instrument’s settings). It lets the visuals lead sometimes, and follow at other times.
• Intent — a higher-level way to steer the “feel” of the drawing (still / sparse / flowing / turbulent) without getting lost in details.

For the premiere, the immediate focus is the live experience in the room: a performance that can hold attention over time, and a system that can be played reliably under pressure.

At the same time, Performance Fingerprints is built to leave open a route back into physical making. The longer arc of the project is to bring things full circle: to convert fingerprints of an ephemeral performance into physical artefacts — residue of the time-based work that can be printed, painted into, or otherwise made material.