Paul Stapleton
Dr Paul Stapleton is an artist/researcher born in Long Beach (California) currently based in Belfast (Ireland), and employed (from 1st August 2007) as a research fellow at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. He is also a founding member and co-director of the interdisciplinary performance group theybreakinpieces.
His primary research interests are: improvisation; new musical instrument design; dialogic approaches to performance and documentation; site-specific performance; installation art; and performance research methods.
paul elsewhere on the web
virb / twitter / flickr / somasa / sarc / facebook / audioboo
periodic and incomprehensive news
June 09 - Presenting a paper with Michael Gurevich at NIME 2009 in Pittsburgh. The paper is titled Designing for Style in New Musical Interactions.
May 09 - Two gigs at SARC: 6th May QUBe Concert & 8th May Music for the MiSS. Documentation coming soon.
March 09 - I have a chapter on practice as research (PaR) in Collision: Interarts Practice and Research.
February 09 - I will be performing on Friday the 27th of February at the Black Box in Belfast as part of Carousel.
February 09 - I will be performing on Saturday the 21 of February as part of 24 Fragments.
July 08 - An article I wrote several years ago has now been published by MIT Press in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac.
April 08 - I made a new film with Michael Gurevich & Gascia Ouzounian.
April 08 - Back from Mexico. Here is a review of our concert in Morelia (Spanish Language).
March 08 - New article available online in the Body, Space & Technology Journal: Dialogic Evidence: Documentation of Ephemeral Events
March 08 - Check out the archive from my recent UEA concert. Also, I will be performing with a few comrades from SARC at the Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Art in Morelia on the 3rd of April.
Jan 08 - Upcoming gig and seminar at University of East Anglia.
Aug 07 - I recently completed a research project titled Dialogic Evidence: Documentation of Ephemeral Events, which included the following: the Covivencia Symposium, the Live Archives Workshops, the LiveArchives.org website, a presentation at the AHDS Performing Arts Summer School: Digital Representations of Performing Arts and a residency with theybreakinpieces as part of the Collision Symposium 2006. A paper on this project will be delivered at the DRHA 2007 conference in September 2007.
Projects in April 2007:
- Live Archives Workshops, Preston
- Games, Life and Utopia: a performative lecture - theybreakinpieces with Ben Evans, Improvisation Continuums: theorising practice across disciplines, Cardiff (with a second performance in Preston)
- CSR residency, Belfast
- theybreakinpieces with Jon Aveyard at Map Live 2007, Carlisle
- theybreakinpieces with Jon Aveyard at Spitball @ The Side, Newcastle
other things
two instruments created in a collaboration between myself and designer-makers neil fawcett and kiran singh
the MiSS (modular sound sculpture). another collaboration with neil fawcett. you can download a sound sample library made from these instruments here.
a documentary of a sometimes…co project that i helped out with: wouldn’t it be nice
Old Artist’s Statement
At the moment - for better or worse - my practice is fragmented, located in the many exchanges with people and places that shape my daily life. Improvisation has become a common theme, both as a way of performing, and as a way of walking through a landscape in actions ranging from hill walking to food shopping. Another focus has become my relationship with specific individuals and locations. Through my collaborative involvement in the site-sensitive work of theybreakinpieces I am finding new ways of acting on, and learning about, the environments that I enter into. Also, I continue to be interested in the many forms through which documentation practices can collide with live art practices. My work is orientated through my engagement with experimental artistic activities, and informed by my ever-shifting knowledge of movement, food, technology, media, land and sound.
contact: pauljstapleton [at] gmail [dot] com