Martin O'Brien: Fading Out of Dead Air

Martin O'Brien. Photo by Manuel Vason, 2021.

Fading Out of Dead Air | Martin O'Brien

International Museum of Surgical Science 1524 N Lake Shore Dr

Free and open to the public. RSVP here. 

Fading Out of Dead Air explores mortality through ideas of immortality. The durational performance by UK-based artist Martin O’Brien will happen in a historic mansion and take the form of a strange séance of actions. Viewers are invited to experience the performance as they move through the space freely, encountering fragmented voices, distorted sounds, and haunting imagery. It will last three hours or until the dead make contact, whichever comes first.

Inspired by hospital radio and pop culture references to ghosts being heard only through analogue technologies, this work explores the human desire to communicate and record. In a strange and eerie landscape, O’Brien shuffles around, recording and playing half heard voices and unholy sounds. O’Brien writes, “A scratchy sound of white noise emanating from a small radio fills the dark room. A faint voice comes through. It sounds like nothing from this world, as if death itself was speaking. Somewhere else, sickly patients lay in hospital beds in hell. They don’t understand why they are still sick. They listen to the hospital radio, but it doesn’t play their favorite songs. Instead, they listen to the sounds of a life once lived.”

Martin O'Brien is an artist and zombie. He works across performance, writing and video art. O’Brien has cystic fibrosis and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants, and performance processes in order to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected. Originally from Burnley, Lancashire, he has shown work throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, and is well known for his solo performances and collaborations with the legendary LA artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose. His most recent works were at Tate Britain in 2020, and the ICA London in 2021. He is winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Visual and Performing Arts 2022. He was writer in residence at Whitechapel Gallery throughout 2023. In 2018, the book Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O’Brien was published by Live Art Development Agency. His work has been featured in The Guardian, Frieze Magazine, on BBC radio and Sky Arts television. He is currently head of performance at Queen Mary University of London.

O’Brien will present a talk through the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on Monday, November 11 from 6-7:30 p.m. at Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave. Free and open to the public. Visit saic.edu/vap for more information.

Organized by Defibrillator Gallery [DFBRL8R], an international roving platform dedicated to Performance Art. Based in Chicago, DFBRL8R presents projects whenever and wherever opportunities arise. Actively contributing to global dialogues surrounding time-based art and immaterial expressive forms, DFBRL8R energetically bridges local and global communities to raise awareness, appreciation, and respect for the discipline of Performance Art.

This project is made possible with support from the Visiting Artists Program and the Wellness Center at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, along with the International Museum of Surgical Science.

For visitor information, please visit the IMSS website.

Persons with disabilities requesting accommodations should visit saic.edu/access.