​NEWTOY
UNDERWATER LISTENING EXPERIENCES
Working in swimming pools, hydrotherapy pools and nature, these exceptional listening experiences literally immerse listeners in sound perceived through the body as a whole. The sound is incredibly clear and detailed offering a space for listening that is very personal. Supported by the feel of zero-gravity and the freedom of movement in all directions.
Sound and wellness
Relaxation sessions at hydrotherapy pools. Accompanied by Watsu practitioners.
Immersive art experience
Multichannel music experiences with live performance in swimming pools below and above the water surface.
Wet Sounds
Last Wednesday of the month
at SenSpa Carys Manor (Sept - April only)
Severe Neurodivergence
Music services for Liquid Listening, UK charity providing Musical Hydrotherapy sessions, training programmes and music production modules to children with Special Education Needs.​​
Creative workshops
For young people and adults. Creating an original piece of music that gets played underwater as part of a public underwater music event.
Previous workshop compositions
SUBMERGENCY
Themed sessions and workshops that raise awareness to the devastation to marine life and the oceans carbon sequestering potential due to man-made underwater noise.
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A bold artistic statement on the human relationship to waste and hyper-consumerism through Destructivist action and object-based art
SCRAPCLUB
Events for smashing stuff up, in large quantities - various household objects, cars, everything we can get our hands on!​
The beauty inherent in objects that have undergone cathartic destructive actions at Scrapclub displayed in their splendour.
'Behind matter, within matter, the creative spirit is hidden' - Wassili Kandinski​
View Gallery.
Online and onsite workshops and activities exploring perspectives on the act of Listening.
ONSITE
Waltham Forest Borough of Culture 2019
WE'RE ALL BATS
Onsite activities, workshops and events around in venues and public spaces around Waltham Forest Borough (2019) and in Dover (2023).
Engaging local communities and artists, partnering with local businesses.
Dover, UK 2023
ONLINE
THE LISTENING ARTS CHANNEL
Four seasons of 13 weeks each during 2020-2021 delivering over 200 online workshops, live streams, Listening experiences and activities from around 50 artists in the UK and abroad.
The content divides into five categories
Listening To Ourselves - Enhance and develop self awareness and the awareness of others, and become a thread that binds core selfhoods between individuals.
Listening Spaces - Expand the concept of the space around us, exploring sounds in close proximity to our ears and those that exist on the further reaches of our hearing capabilities.
Listening as Culture - Thinking of culture in this context as a meaning that is drawn towards the metaphor and beyond the listener and the listened to
Early Years & SEN Listeners - Motivating young listeners to listen to their surroundings and be active using their ears, learning different ways to use sound as means of understanding the world around them.
Funded by Arts Council England and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport with the Culture Recovery Fund.
RESONANSI
Online workshops and creative collaborations between artists in Indonesia and the UK.
Producing BORN PREQUEL an album released digitally and on cassette.
Available here
Partnering with Muarasuara, Indonesian sound art organisation.
Funded by the British Council 2022.
Geo-locative sonic fictions in outdoor spaces. Combining psychogeography with storytelling and sound in an immersive walk.
Website
THE ONEIRONAUT
'Cahen's dream traveller stimulates my imagination, directing me to details I would have missed, pasting eerie parallel dream worlds onto a cold, grey weekend morning in suburbia'
- THE WIRE 384 / Jan 2016
'Joel Cahen's magic realist The Oneironaut in the most immersive app... with details from the park acting as narrative triggers. Dedications on benches become the mantras of an unseen ritualistic gathering. Large circular flowerbeds become burial sites where sound is looped and layered. Crashes and clatters combine with eerie female voices, a dense hum and fragments of a drunk male voice singing a shanty of sorts. I feel I've disturbed some spirits which quieten as I step back onto the path.
- THE WIRE 384 / Jan 2016
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A METAL commission in Southend 2015