biography

Barbara Ellison is an award-winning artist / composer whose work explores ghostly presence and substance in a plethora of sonic and visual realms. Her creations have been presented internationally in live performances, installations, featured radio shows, and audio releases, including her latest album ‘CyberSongs’ (Unsounds Records) and the 3-hour piece ‘Cyber-Opera’. She holds a PhD on composition from the University of Huddersfield, UK. Her book ‘Sonic Phantoms’ (Bloomsbury Press, co-authored with Thomas BW Bailey) was recently published to critical acclaim.

Through her work and research with ‘Phantoms’, She explores states of auditory and visual ambiguity working with materials that are either naturally ambiguous or have been ‘composed’ or created to attain this quality, in order to exploit the potential for apophenia to manifest, bringing with it what she calls a ‘phantasmatic’ presence.

She moves playfully between composing, making films, installations, sculpture, drawings and live performance. With a strong interest in ritual and ritualisation, her performances also often play with ritualistic forms giving rise to sonic structures emerging through a hypnotic repetitious exploration of apparently simple sound-producing actions. She avidly explores the turbulent waters of repetition, obsession and intensity, as well as the untamed sonic creatures that lurk in that enticing realm.

She has developed a syncretic approach that encompasses and coalesces all kinds of sources, materials, techniques and creative tools: from exploring and performing with the sonic intricacies of amplified objects (Drawing Phantoms), creating voice avatars with trans-human capabilities (Vocal Phantoms), creating ‘Phantom Portraits’ or carrying out field expeditions from diverse environments such as the Arctic, the Himalayas, or the Amazonian rainforest (Natural Phantoms).

She lives and works in the West of Ireland.