All sorts of creative projects were sparked during the dark days of lockdown. Ravine/Machine came to fruition a full year after Amy Cutler and Scott Pitkethly met on Twitter with plans to collaborate. She’s an experimental geographer, photographer and film-maker; he’s a programmer and musician who also builds his own electronic instruments. Together, they make an intriguing audiovisual hybrid. Imagine a suite of projections and ambient lights backed by a live score created with autoharp, contact mics and granular synths. We bet you can’t.

The duo has a pretty idiosyncratic DIY process. Pitkethly also makes music under the moniker Cutlasses and performs with an impressive array of homemade equipment, usually buried under a mess of wires. Meanwhile, Cutler displays photos she shot on a macro camera intended for dentistry. She also uses an old-fashioned Kodak slide machine and embellishes the projections with adapted torches and candle-powered carousels.

While their aim is to synthesise the audio and visual elements, with shimmering images set to oscillating sounds, the work seems to incorporate the trappings of the performance itself: “the rumble of the slide tray, the flicker of the light shutter and the rotating air fan”. With these two you get the impression their gear is very much part of their art.

Ravine/Machine performed in September at the Rossi Bar for Spirit of Gravity’s first event since lockdown. This time they’re coming to the Rose Hill, the local home of experimental audiovisual treats. Support on the night comes from R.Dyer and I Am Fya.

The Rose Hill, Saturday 4th December 2021
Tickets available here