Jonathan Crean

Jonathan Crean is a sound artist and performer from the West of Ireland. Through improvised performance, field recording, composition and installation, he explores how sound can be used to challenge the human-nature divide which dominates modern Western society. He is interested in deep listening and sound-making approaches that destabilize the human as author, and promote co-creation with/through materials, spaces, and environmental forces.

He works with foraged materials and elemental forces, allowing them to co-create. Traces of fieldwork and field-being carryover into his performances. He uses tools such as contact microphones, hydrophones, motors, transducers, amplification, and audio filters to reveal and deepen these interactions.

Recent works and performances include the trees have something to say, an ongoing live performance series that utilises gathered materials, contact-miked wood and inductive soundscapes; cycle form, an activated sculpture using water, contact mics and maxMSP; and so they reach back, a film and sound piece exploring embodied encounters with landscape.

He holds an MA in Experimental Sound Practice from University College Cork. He is a member of The Fold, a cross-disciplinary group of artists and geologists, and the NCF Artist Collective in Mayo. He is also a founding member of Celtic Reflections, an experimental radio art collective. He runs a monthly experimental music meetup called Accidental Music Club. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, taking part in multiple group and solo shows.