“Joe Young is one of the most talented and innovative sound artists of our generation.” Prof. Lizbeth Goodman, Director SMARTlab, University College Dublin

Artist Statement
CV

In 2005, I graduated with an MA Design by Independent Project from University of Brighton, after a 25 year career as an actor and composer, refocusing my practice as a visual artist. I make sound pieces, installations and performance works for galleries, site-specific spaces and digital media, whilst retaining a connection to my former theatre practice through occasional sound design commissions.

My work has been exhibited at Seoul Art Space Mullae, British Ceramics Biennial 2017, Towner Art Gallery, Shetland Museum & Archives, Errant Sound Berlin, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Pallant House, Jerwood Hastings, Estorick Collection and Seoul Museum of Art. 

I have guest lectured at CASS London Met, Edge Hill University, University of Essex, Rose Bruford College, University of Sussex and regularly on the MA Digital Media, University of Brighton. My sound pieces have been published and broadcast by Radio 3, Public Record, Furthernoise, One Minute of Silence, Radio Papesse and Resonance FM.

Recent large-scale works include Revolution #10, a participatory public artwork about democracy which was presented at the House of Commons in March 2015 and The Ballad of Skinny Lattes and Vintage Clothing, an ambitious 6 movement noise opera about artists and austerity. The work toured site-specifically to venues across the UK and an edition of which is held in the permanent collection of the Estorick Collection in London. An edition of my work The Missing Paintings is held in the permanent collection of Towner Art Gallery.

Sound commissions include Sensing Culture at Lewes Castle, creating a permanent 4 channel sound installation and an interactive binaural audio guide; Sound and Music’s Minute of Listening; Sonic Arts Network’s education programme Sonic Postcards and Creative Partnerships. Sound Designs for interactive artists Invisible Flock, Talawa Theatre Company and Silent Opera; a series of films for Architecture Inside Out; a short film collaboration with Curious for Channel 4’s Three Minute Wonders and soundtracks for drama and documentary on Radio 4 and ITV.

As my artist alter-ego, Giuseppe Marinetti, I created the Neo Futurist Collective, a visual and performance art group dedicated to the celebration of urban noise. In 2008, we began a series of works entitled ReAwakening of a City, based on the surviving seven bars of the printed score to Awakening of a City by Futurist artist, Luigi Russolo. Information on the project can be found here and in an interview with Marc Garrett at furtherfield. Other works include a walking performance on Wall Street, as part of Conflux Festival; Start! – A NeoFuturist Opera in 5 Movements for the first ever World Listening Day and Concerto for Brutalist Buildings at the former Commonwealth Institute in London (now the Design Museum). I have been a panelist and speaker at the Battle of Ideas, At Abrahams and Future Cities on the subject of the legacy of the avant garde. In summer 2018, the Estorick Collection showed a 10 year retrospective of the Neo Futurist Collective’s work – Make Futurism Great Again, at the end of which the collective pressed the self-destruct button.

I collaborate with ceramic artist Kay Aplin in curating and producing international projects in sound art and ceramics for The Ceramic House, Brighton, a pop-up gallery and itinerant artist’s residency space. Our latest project Edges, kicked off in Spring 2022 with a collaborative residency programme between Irish and Estonian artists.

Finally, I have recently completed a practice-based PhD Killruddery: Listening to the Archive, exploring the 400+ year old  archives of an Irish aristocratic family, the Brabazons, supervised by Prof Lizbeth Goodman of SMARTlab University College Dublin, part of the Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland. The research is generously funded by the Irish Research Council and Killruddery Arts, Culture, Ecology & Heritage.