Reactor Halls
2012–2021
Reactor Halls is an experimental programme of live performance, film and music events curated by Reactor.
"The whole set up is enormously precarious and part of the drama comes from the threat that it might teeter out of sync or collapse at any moment."
Archive:
Reactor Halls E21: Monstrous Assemblage
Dirty Electronics + Special Guests
Saturday 6 November, 19:00-21:30
A performance-installation and celebration of coming together, group work, physical materials and raw sound. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E20: The Gold Ones' Dummies
Reactor
Remote viewing provides access to the Gold Ones’ Dummies. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E19: TEK-ANIMAL-LIFE Rendezvous
Plastique Fantastique
For TEK-ANIMAL-LIFE Rendezvous, all come together in one big loop of the fairyland of TEK-Folk. No human-masters here, only TEK-Animal-Kin! With: Plastique Fantastique, Benedict Drew, Reactor and Frankie Roberts. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E18: Under the Radar
An evening of pirated films and hillbilly moonshine. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E17: Awkwoods
Daniel Oliver
Awkwoods workshop alongside two additional public events: 'Long Table' and 'Weird Séance'. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E16: Ghost in the Machine Music
Graham Dunning
Five experimental artists explore the ingrained social, physical and sonic resonances of Primary and Nottingham through the prism of DIY electronic music. With: Shelley Parker, Tom Richards, Leslie Deere, Tom Mudd and Graham Dunning. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E15: You can't win them all, ladies & gentlemen
A live radio show by Jenny Moore & guests
Using radio as the format and recorded live on the night, the final episode of You can’t win them all, ladies and gentlemen takes 'Misunderstandings' as its method. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E14: Cables
Rammel Club presents a celebration of the humble cable. With: A.N.T. Attack, [D-C], Dale Cornish, Experimental Sonic Machines, Ian Watson, Marlo Eggplant, Melanie O’Dubshlaine, Mormor Den Rejsende, Murray Royston-Ward, Phantom Chips, Phil Julian and Trans/Human. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E13: Salon dyslexic
An event that attempts to tackle the anxiety and neurosis generated from the condition of dyslexia. With: Benedict Drew, Nicholas Brooks, Heather Phillipson and Rhodri Davies. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E12: Dirty Electronics Ugly Weekender
A 24-hour retreat exploring DIY electronics, sound and design. With: John Richards, Alexandra Moon-Age, Jennifer Lucy Allan, Natalie Kay-Thatcher, John Fass, Jim Frize, Phillip Henderson, et al. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E11: The Dark Horse Moving Picture Show
Film, live performance and music event by artists Jennet Thomas, Paul Tarragó and Leo Chadburn (aka Simon Bookish). Read more ...
Reactor Halls E10: Myth-Science-Colloquium
Myth-Science-Colloquium attempted to accelerate and decelerate myths. Featuring Plastique Fantastique, Tai Shani, Benedict Drew, Oreet Ashery, Tom Clarke, Mark Jackson, John Russell, and AAS. Read more...
Reactor Halls E09: Psychotronic Reactors
A one-day workshop followed by performance, experimenting with some of the cosmic and geological forces in which our psyches are subjected to (psychogeophysics). Read more ...
Reactor Halls E08: The Family Show, Hosted by Kathy Noble
The Family Show takes the idea of a television chat show as a loose structure with which to stage a live exhibition, featuring Sophiel Aurora, Jennifer Bailey, Julia Crabtree and William Evans and Eliot Crabtree. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E07: I am the Live Warrior
Juneau Projects present a unique live version of their ongoing open exhibition project 'I am the Warrior', featuring Alex Juno (Elmo Sexwhistle) and Swoomptheeng. Read more …
Reactor Halls E06: Wirksworth Town Hall
Reactor Halls transformed Wirksworth Town Hall into a den of anachronism, featuring Core Melt Down, Electric Magnetic Light, Joseph Lewis, Public Service Broadcasting and Dirty Electronics. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E05: AAS present Circle of Fifths
Art group AAS curate a night of drone based music featuring Samekhmem, Graham Dunning, Hexachordal and Phillip Henderson. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E04: Terry’s Back Passage (Reboot) Compèred by Eǝrth Rod
Terry’s Back Passage is a no holds barred open-mic-style session compèred by Eǝrth Rod. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E03: Daniel Oliver presents Live Art Dogging
A rough and raucous evening of intimate and interactive one-to-one performances played out in front of an audience of inter-passive voyeurs. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E02: Curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Featuring mildly grating communist boxheads WE, horror hurdy-hog folk from Swine-thing and the ecstatic med-evil dance of the Dancing Plague of 1518. Read more ...
Reactor Halls E01: Reactor’s 10th Birthday Party
Reactor turned 10 years old and we decided to celebrate with a twisted 10-year-old’s birthday party. Read more ...
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The show took the linguistic principle of assemblage and undid it through intonation, suggestion, through a direct attack upon dialectic form that saw words choke and unravel over one another, becoming unfamiliar.
Throwing sound conductive dinosaur parts into the audience, we were forced to have a taste of the sonic madness.
Can we find a train of thought in the machine-like score of John Richards’ 8-bit? Is the ugliest thing about this Ugly Weekender the clumsiness of the language with which we’re forced to describe it?
The stone-drone builds and is momentarily broken with committed stone-banging interjections, whilst Moon-age’s ‘bird’ flitters across the space.
Sex dolls, The Sooty Show and super 8: Richard Whitby gets sucked into a nightmarish version of children’s TV in Nottingham’s newest arts space.
The event felt a bit like a family ritual that one has inadvertently wandered into.
What we had witnessed was the simulacral-sacrificial distintegration of Ribbonhead’s subjective ego, its prismatic ritual de- and re-composition.
A pattern emerges where Kemp and Jordan take it in turns to set up and overload to breaking point a kind of ephemeral circuit between electronic equipment, geological objects, and our own nervous systems.
She met the gaze of her audience with such conviction that for a moment, I found myself slightly frightened.
Fantastic neo-Western installation, quasi-talk show, exuberant dance performance, & Schneemann/Khia mash-up.
The event became a celebration of the art of getting absorbed in the creative act while simultaneously ‘performing’ this process to share with others.
'Circle of Fifths' staged a theatre where sonic material could develop into acting entities, with the performers functioning discretely behind the noise.
‘For the ladies: Come and see the sex god. And for the guys: Come and do better or I'll take you outside and you can beat me up’, said Roger.
In between the acts, Eǝrth Rod made a series of peeing jokes, which drove me crazy to the point where I heckled him.
As part of the 'inaugural event' for Reactors new art space, I think Reactor Halls is off to a bloody good start.
A triple bill of musical Communism, pestilence and perversity.
Woke up with a vague memory of an invasion of dancing medieval beasts and a robotic love cult.
A Jimmy Savile piñata Reactor - liquid gold.
Press
Review of E16 - Robert Barry, The Wire
Review of E14 - Marlo Eggplant & Benjamin Hallat, Radio Free Midwich
Review of E11 - Richard Whitby, The Double Negative
Review of E09 - Nathan Jones, Furtherfield
Review of E08 - Emma Moore, a-n
Review of E08 - Jennie Syson, Nottingham Visual Arts
Review of E07 - Anneka French, this is tomorrow
Reactor Halls events are independently produced by Reactor at Primary. Reactor Halls E06 was co-curated with Rose Lejeune as part of Wirksworth Festival 2013, and Reactor Halls E20 was held at Bonington Gallery. Reactor Halls E04-05, E07-16 and E19-21 were supported by Arts Council England.
