The Bad Vibes Club: Feeling Bad Performances

The Bad Vibes Club is a forum for research into negative states, started by the artist Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau. As part of In formation's broader exploration of the forms of encounter and confrontation that are made possible by public spaces and artistic practices, The Bad Vibes Club brings together a number of participatory and performative events related to the theme of 'resentment'.

Resentment at injustice, and the closely related affect of indignation, can be said to drive diverse movements such as socialism, radical feminism, Black Lives Matter and the reparations lobby, but can also be connected to online trolling culture and the resurgence of ethno-nationalism. The programme of events that make up Feeling Bad asks: what is resentment, and what can we do with it?  

In the workshops, participants stretch their capacity for resentment, make some bad decisions and move with clumsiness. This morning and afternoon programme will be followed in the evening by a performative event, building on the themes of the workshops.

Following a day of workshops by Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau, Sophie Mallet and Hamish MacPherson, Feeling Bad gets performative with new live works.

• Fire A performance by Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau with golf putting and sound, talking through the physical, emotional and aesthetic significance of fire as an instrument of power and politics.
• National Anthems In this performative talk, artist Sophie Mallett offers an insight into her ongoing research around borders, surveillance and sounds – specifically, national anthems. The work navigates a topography of competing technologies that define and confine territories, exploring the politics of control embedded in technologies of sound production and transmission.  
• Doomsday is Just Not Coming Hamish MacPherson leads a guided meditation on bitterness, mediocrity and inertness. The performance provides a chance to journey through past aggravation you can’t forget, and future revenge that never seems to arrive.

Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau creates sculptures, drawings, performances and films. His work addresses abject materials, negative affective states, and the ambiguities of language and objects. He runs Radio Anti with Ross Jardine, and collaborates with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. He founded The Bad Vibes Club, which is a forum for research into negative states that organises events and commissions artists to make new work. More information about The Bad Vibes Club can be found on their official website.

Sophie Mallett is a London-based artist. Her practice is concerned with forms of belonging and exclusion and how these manifest through national borders, capital and migration. Through music, radio, video and installation she pursues a practice focused on how sounds intersect with affect, politics and value, concentrating on the connections between sound, music, history and place. Educated at London College of Communication, Open School East and Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, Mallett’s practice is both interdisciplinary and collaborative, with a reflexive emphasis on how individuals work together.  

Hamish MacPherson is a London-based artist who uses ideas and methods from choreography and dance to think about politics. He makes workshops, non-digital games, performances, writings, images and other things in artistic, academic and community contexts. His works tends to be clusters of many smaller things rather than working up to something like a big show. Current projects include THIS MOVEMENT, using lots of different methods to look at how we (everyone) use our bodies to make politics and Configuration (Hard Care), looking at care as an aesthetic, choreographic and political practice. His work somehow reflects his positions as a white European, able-bodied, heterosexual cismale.