An Invitation to Disrupt...

I performed in Colchester on Thursday 12th February 2026 as part of 'The Imaginarium Presents Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden: The Urban Wild & Other Disturbances.'

Promo video for the evening created by me

The event invited participants and the audience to 'consider concepts and practices of disturbance, not as unwelcome ruptures in predictable everyday urban experience, but as openings to something gainfully unintentional, unexpected, and perceptibly surprising'. The first half of the evening looked at artistic responses to disturbance with the second half exploring the theme through science, ecology and horticulture.

Talking to Tony Sampson pre-show [Image credit: Stuart Bowditch]

My performance was titled ‘An Invitation to Disrupt’ and explored the site of Colchester's Meanwhile Garden through manipulated field recordings, feedback generation and debris found on location. My composition was largely improvised, but utilised a graphic score (for timings) which created by slicing and rearranging eight historical OS maps of the site.

Audience participation to disrupt my performance was also encouraged, with attendees being able to disturb my soundscape by sending a text message to a tablet. This triggered the warning beeps of a reversing vehicle or the air brakes of a bus to be broadcast. 129 messages were sent during the 30 minute performance.

Audience members were given DIY invitations to disturb

The evening closed with a special collaborative performance between Stuart Bowditch and myself as we attempted to disturb our creative practices by switching equipment for an improvised performance. It was a great opportunity to experience Stuart's granular synthesis setup, and the audience further disrupted our performance by joining us in an impromptu jam.

Audience member enjoys trying out my homemade 'Birdy Gurdy' [Image credit: Stuart Bowditch]

Stuart Bowditch performs 'Homage to the Waiting Room' [Image credit: Matt Shenton]