Molly Macleod
Art and Science MA
Central Saint Martins UAL
Graduates: 2021
Specialisms: Sound Art / Art Performance / Sustainable Design
My location: London, United Kingdom
Molly Macleod
First Name: Molly
Last Name: Macleod
University / College: Central Saint Martins UAL
Course / Program: Art and Science MA
Graduates: 2021
Specialisms: Sound Art / Art Performance / Sustainable Design
My Location: London, United Kingdom
Website: Click To See Website
About
Molly Macleod is a multidisciplinary artist exploring scientific concepts through collaborative projects with researchers and scientists. Through poetic interpretation and distilling meaning via her use of unconventional, signifying materials, her artwork invites intimate and philosophical engagement combined with accessible simplicity and a minimalist aesthetic. Locating her practice within the liminal space between art and science she employs the scientific method to examine and question cultural phenomena.
Molly has grown crystals that hear sounds, cultured the microbial imprint of TATE Modern visitors, formed pigment from her own skin, created a microphone out of carbon from her own body, revealed the sonic world from within trees and walked new paths formed by the patterns of her own veins.
Can the waste materials we shed from our bodies become a part of our technological future? For We Are All Carbon, my own biological matter is repurposed to amplify sound. One year’s worth of hair and nails, shed and collected, are cremated to form carbon granules. Vibrations passing through these granules create a transducer that converts electrical signals into sound. Through the past year of restricted access my focus has turned inward, unable to collaborate tangibly with others my own body became my site of practice, amplifying my voice through my own recycled biomaterial. Exploring the significance of connecting our physicality to the intangible nature of recorded sound. Can technology derived from our own organic matter blur the lines between us and machines? Can we reassess our relationship with carbon, sourcing our consumption from our own bodies and recycling ourselves? We Are All Carbon is presented as an evolving sonic intervention, as transient as the shifting organic matter that forms our individual anatomies. Exhibited recently at Asylum Chapel and Safehouses 1&2 in Peckham, London as a durational performance, I developed an amplification system that attaches to my body as an extension of myself to broadcast my voice throughout the exhibition, showcasing the texture and tone achieved from the carbon microphone I have developed, blurring the lines between a live scientific demonstration and an improvised performance.