Fading Out of Dead Air explores mortality through ideas of immortality. The durational performance by UK-based artist Martin O’Brien will happen in a historic mansion and take the form of a strange séance of actions. Viewers are invited to experience the performance as they move through the space freely, encountering fragmented voices, distorted sounds, and haunting imagery. It will last three hours or until the dead make contact, whichever comes first.

Inspired by hospital radio and pop culture references to ghosts being heard only through analogue technologies, this work explores the human desire to communicate and record. In a strange and eerie landscape, O’Brien shuffles around, recording and playing half heard voices and unholy sounds. O’Brien writes, “A scratchy sound of white noise emanating from a small radio fills the dark room. A faint voice comes through. It sounds like nothing from this world, as if death itself was speaking. Somewhere else, sickly patients lay in hospital beds in hell. They don’t understand why they are still sick. They listen to the hospital radio, but it doesn’t play their favorite songs. Instead, they listen to the sounds of a life once lived.”

He works across performance, writing and video art. O’Brien has cystic fibrosis and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants, and performance processes in order to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected. Originally from Burnley, Lancashire, O’Brien has shown work throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, and is well known for his solo performances and collaborations with the legendary LA artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose. His most recent works were at Tate Britain in 2020, and the ICA London in 2021. He is winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Visual and Performing Arts 2022. He was writer in residence at Whitechapel Gallery throughout 2023. In 2018, the book Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O’Brien was published by Live Art Development Agency. His work has been featured in The Guardian, Frieze Magazine, on BBC radio and Sky Arts television. He is currently head of performance at Queen Mary University of London.

This project is made possible with support from the Visiting Artists Program and the Wellness Center at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, along with the International Museum of Surgical Science.

ABOUT…

Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery [DFBRL8R] is an international roving platform dedicated to Performance Art. Based in Chicago, DFBRL8R fosters a global dialogue around time-based art practices by presenting projects in diverse settings and fostering cross-cultural exchange.

The Wellness Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago provides empathic and compassionate support and care dedicated to ensuring that every SAIC student’s experience is a successful one. Health and Counseling Services and Disability & Learning Resources are valuable assets to SAIC students, faculty, and staff.

The Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has introduced over 1,000 influential artists and thinkers to the public through lectures, screenings, and conversations since 1868.

The International Museum of Surgical Science, located in a historic mansion on Lake Shore Drive, explores the fascinating history of surgery and medicine through exhibitions, programming, and an extraordinary collection of artifacts.

O’Brien will present a talk through the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on Monday, November 11 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave. Free and open to the public. Visit saic.edu/vap for more information.

Free Free with RSVP

Official Website

More events on this date

Tags: Chicago, Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery, Fading Out of Dead Air, IMSS, International Museum of Surgical Science, Martin O'Brien, Near North Side, Performance: Fading Out of Dead Air