Cork-based musician delighted to secure artist-in-residence at Triskel

RESONATE is an artist residency programme allowing artists to create new work and collaborate with fellow artists in one of six cultural spaces across the country.

Vicky Langan, a long-term Cork-based musician, is the latest artist to be announced as a RESONATE artist-in-residence and will take up her tenure at Triskel Arts Centre for the next six months.

The RESONATE programme operates through the Music Network, financially supporting artists and working with the cultural space where the artist will work and perform.

Langan, who took a break from creating and composing, is delighted to be back in action with the support of Triskel and Music Network.

“It is very exciting for me to get this opportunity. In the past couple of years, I’ve taken a break from performing and creating for personal reasons,” she said. 

“Even though I was technically away from composing, I’m busy, and I’ve always got a lot of projects on the go.

The past few years have been especially intense, so getting this opportunity now feels so positive.

Langan has been an active performer in the experimental music scene in Cork and says there have been many changes in the city in recent years that have reduced the number of spaces available for underground sound art.

“I was very active in the amazing Cork underground,” she said. “I did a lot of DIY gigs and performances in spaces that don’t exist anymore. Cork was an amazing place to create during the mid-2000s. There was plenty of space to create and experiment, and it was an inspiring time to make one-off, improvised pieces.

“Getting to spend time in The Triskel is a fantastic opportunity. I’m returning to where I left off, but I feel renewed and more grounded than ever.”

Langan came to Cork from Galway more than 20 years ago to study music at UCC, and discovered a love for experimental music.

“I did a music degree at UCC under the tuition of John Godfrey, a composer and improviser,” she said.

“For the first time, I was becoming exposed to all kinds of avant-garde, contemporary composers, and improvisers. I was 17/18, coming across all this stuff for the first time, and it felt so inspiring. 

I connected to this type of expression and knew it’s what I wanted to do with my life.

Experimental music is freeing, says Langan, who loves working within a medium less structured than what she originally came to study.

“When I came to Cork, as a 17-year-old music student, I was a violin player, but I started to become aware of people who were using drone [a type of sound] in composition. The sounds were about getting lost in drone, drum, grit, and texture, as opposed to melody and rhythm, and allowing yourself to dissolve into pure feeling.

“I felt the connection between your body and sound and fell in love with this art form.”

Cork’s strong community has helped Langan become the artist she is, and her adoptive home has afforded her opportunities to grow and learn.

“Thankfully, Cork has always had a rich community of people aligned to this form of expression. We have a strong sound art experimental community across all disciplines. 

Living here and being part of the art community means intermingling with poets, improvisers, and contemporary dancers.

Langan says she was lucky to arrive in Cork and to be exposed to bold performance art and inspiring sound poetry. “It was the perfect environment to find my feet in,” she said.

The artist will collaborate with Maximillion Le Cain, a prolific Cork film-maker who primarily works in moving image work, including features, shorts, and installations.

“I’ll be using this residency to create new work in both sound and film, using violins and Super 8.

“Max Le Cain will be a creative collaborator on this project with me. We have been working together for over a decade and are incredibly like-minded in the type of art that makes us feel excited and alive.

My background is in sound and noise, and Max’s is in all kinds of cinema, especially experimental cinema, so together, we hope to create something special.

I’ll be working towards a concert performance in December in Triskel.

Super 8 is a film format first introduced in the 1960s. Today it is a much-loved format for evoking a sense of nostalgia or period in film-making. Langan loves the feeling of mystery that can be achieved using it.

“It is beautiful and mysterious as a medium, with a tactile element. It fits alongside the way I like to use grain and texture in my work.”

Experimental music and sound are limitless, so where does Langan find her inspiration?

“I tend to find it in the natural world. When I began working with sound, I was a young mother and lived alone. Somebody taught me how to use a microphone to amplify sound. I was suddenly aware of all the sounds around me. I would amplify everyday materials, like newspapers, the ashes from the fire, and my hair.”

Langan says there are many ordinary things that she finds exciting and interesting, such as manipulating grains of salt or putting a microphone under the earth.

“It’s a bit like how people might use a magnifying glass. I love listening to organic matters and raw sounds. I have an intense, emotional connection with raw and basic things.”