Memory Compression (2017) Joe Beedles

CATALYST: Scholar Spotlight – Joe Beedles

Beedles’ wider practice as a sound and visual artist explores club, techno and electroacoustic music, with an interest in both experimental and ambient soundscapes. His current focus is on generative systems for live performances, providing audiences with compelling and immersive audio-reactive imagery. His work has featured in gallery, venue and club contexts internationally, and he has held residencies in Chongqing, China (2017), Wysing Arts Centre, UK (2019), and in Johannesburg, South Africa & Maputo, Mozambique with the British Council (2019).


Memory Compression install shot
Image: Courtesy of Jules Lister

Beedles’ audiovisual work combines music and digital video with generative technologies, to create abstracted works that explore time, memory, and the ‘threshold between the real and the simulated’. This work explores the idea of ‘compressed memory’ – a term that might equally apply to digital or human memory retrieval, considering how recollections can blur and distort over time.


Memory Compression, 2017 Joe Beedles