As bodies, citizens and actors in the global flow, we act and are acted upon. Crucially together, we ask: How can we exist in structures that are failing?

In this half-day provocation invited artists, musicians and theorists examine systems on the brink of collapse and offer an invitation to break down and examine the opaque and complex ties that bind.

Embodied, economic, environmental and sonic systems are interrogated as our contributors consider how technology, money, warfare and politics grasp us.
The day will culminate in a large scale performance by 40-person experimental choir Musarc of Jennifer Walshe’s, “The White Noisery”.

PART I: Embodied & Economic

2.00-2.15 Nervous Systems : Keynote presentation from ICA Talks & Research Curator Susanna Davies-Crook

2.15-2.35 To Not Follow Under: screening by artist Leah Clements

2.35-2.45 Aphonia: screening by artist Sophie Hoyle

2.45-3.20 The Body Before Me: Artists Leah Clements and Sophie Hoyle join a discussion and Q&A with Robyn Landau (Kinda Studios) and Sam Kelly (Red Medicine)

3.20-3.35 break

3.35-5.00 Systems at the Brink: presentations and discussion with Jaya Klara Brekke, Wassim Alsindi, Georgina Voss, Shumon Basar and Ann Pettifor chaired by Susanna Davies-Crook


PART II: Environmental & Sonic

5.40-5.55 Becoming Plant: Guided meditation by Jemma Foster - Wild Alchemy Lab

5.55-6.10 Toxic Blooms: screening by artist Diana Policarpo

6.10-6.40 Collapsology: a presentation by Richard Hames

6.40-6.45 break

6.50-7.15  On Falling Short: a musical exploration of falling, failing and flailing by artist Sam Belinfante ft. Musarc and David Lale (cello)

7.15-7.30  Music, Art, AI and The White Noisery : a live introduction by Jennifer Walshe

7.30-8.00  The White Noisery by Jennifer Walshe performed by experimental 40-person choir Musarc perform

Featuring artwork by Christina Cushing

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Sophie Hoyle is an artist and writer whose practice explores an intersectional approach to postcolonial, queer, feminist, anti-psychiatry and disability.

Leah Clements is a London-based artist. Her work explores self/other boundaries and collective identities, the subconscious, and the impact of emotion on the body.

Red Medicine is a podcast concerned with the politics of health, medicine, and the body.

Kinda Studios is a creative science studio using neuroscience to prove the power of art on human connection and wellbeing.

Wassim Z. Alsindi PhD operates at the intersection of intersections, chronicling visions, designs, and externalities of contemporary technologies across context and episteme. Wassim holds a Ph.D. in ultrafast physics, co-founded MIT’s Cryptoeconomic Systems journal, and has performed, lectured, and exhibited in over 25 countries. Current projects span philosophy of technology, experimental music, theatre, poetry, fiction, and games. wassim.pubpub.org

Shumon Basar is a writer, editor and curator. He is co-author of the books The Extreme Self and The Age of Earthquakes, both with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Other roles have included Commissioner of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum; founding member of Fondazione Prada’s ‘Thought Council’; Expert Advisory Group for the Royal Commission of AlUla, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Chief Narrative Officer and co-founder at Zien; and editorial positions at the magazines TANK, Bidoun, 032c and Flash Art. He was recently Curator-in-Residence at Zora Zine, where he published a trilogy of pieces around his concept of ‘Lorecore.’

Georgina Voss is a writer, artist, and researcher. Her writing has been published widely including in the Atlantic, Guardian, Harvard Design Magazine, and MIT Press. Her installation and performance work has been commissioned and shown at institutions including transmediale, Akademie Schloss Solitude, STUK, Design Museum, and Tate Modern. Voss is author of 'Systems Ultra: Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World (Verso 2024)

Dr Jaya Klara Brekke speaks and writes on emerging technologies in relation to trust, sensibilities and new political economies. She leads ecosystem development at Nym, a decentralized privacy system and holds a PhD from Durham University Geography department with a thesis titled: Disassembling the Trust Machine, three cuts on the political matter of blockchain. jayapapaya.xyz

Ann Pettifor is a political economist and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She is best known for predicting the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-9 with her book: The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave, 2006) and for her 2018 book: The Case for the Green New Deal. In 2008 she (together with colleagues from the economics and environmental sectors) co-wrote the original Green New Deal (GND). In January 2022 the Scottish government appointed Pettifor to its Just Transition Commission. Ms Pettifor writes a regular newsletter on Substack: System Change.

Jemma Foster is a multi-disciplinary writer, artist, curator and practitioner of plant and vibrational medicine. Her work explores more-than-human intelligence, interspecies communication and emerging technologies. She is the founder of Wild Alchemy Lab.

Diana Policarpo is a visual artist and composer working in visual and musical media including drawing, video, sculpture, text, performance, and multi-channel sound installation. Policarpo investigates gender politics, economic structures, health, and interspecies relations through speculative transdisciplinary research. She creates performances and installations to examine experiences of vulnerability and empowerment associated with acts of exposing oneself to the capitalist world.

Richard Hames is a writer, journalist and former composer. He is the pseudonymous author of Post-Internet Far Right (Dog Section, 2021) and The Rise of Ecofascism: Climate Change and the Far Right (Polity, 2022) as well as an editor of Crude Futures (New Models, 2023). He is the audio producer at Novara Media, and the steward of the Election Tech Handbook as well as a fellowship candidate at Newspeak House. He is currently working on a book project on 'critical collapsology'.

Musarc is one of the UK’s foremost experimental choirs. Based at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University, the ensemble has developed a distinct reputation for its interdisciplinary and research-led approach to music and performance, and the space it affords artists and singers to experiment with new ideas. [musarc.org](http://musarc.org/)

Sam Belinfante is an artist living and working in London. Along with filmmaking and photographic work, his practice incorporates curating, sound and performance. Recent projects include the solo show I See a Voice, The National Festival of Making (2023) and the performance The Long, very long Journey with Laure Prouvost at Kunshalle Wien, Vienna (2023). sambelinfante.com

Jennifer Walshe  is a composer and performer. Her music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world. She has been the recipient of fellowships and prizes from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, the Internationales Musikinstitut, Darmstadt and Akademie Schloss Solitude among others. milker.org

Nervous Systems is also a long-term ACE supported research project by Susanna Davies-Crook.

Christina Cushing คริสติน่า คูสซิ่ง (she/her) is a Thai-British visual artist based in London. Working primarily with computer-generated imagery and eye tracking, her practice examines interconnections of technology, consciousness, constructed mythologies, speculative fiction, and non-human intelligence.