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Darren Cunningham (aka Actress ) seems to have lived many lifetimes within a single lifetime - he grew up into pro football, transferring his interests to music after suffering an injury. He launched Werkdiscs in 2004, originally as a club night, and then as the label responsible for releasing some of the most forward-thinking club electronics of the last 15 years. Werkdiscs brought us seminal releases from Starkey, Lukid, Zomby, Lone, Moire, Helena Hauff and, of course, Actress himself. His debut album 'Hazyville' came out on the label, followed by 'Splazsh' (2010, Honest Jon's) - the former pricked the ears of pretty much the whole music industry, from clubland to modernist miltants; the latter solidified Darren's place as a true innovator. 'Splazsh' topped Wire Magazine's 2010 Rewind list, as well as the end-of-year lists of Fact Mag, RA, Pitchfork and others.

Darren's subsequent releases - 'R.I.P', 'Ghettoville', 'AZD', 'LAGEOS', '88', and most recently 'Karma & Desire' - have charted the evolution of a truly exploratory musician, moving without formal constraints or functional boundaries; every new work has been celebrated by his ever growing army of fans and the media alike. Outside the studio, his work has extended to multimedia interpretations of Steve Reich works, live collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra (the recordings became 'LAGEOS'), performance-tributes to Stockhausen, live soundtracks for a 2012 Tate exhibition of work by Yoyoi Kusama, and multimedia collaborations with Eddie Peake and Nic Hamilton ('A Shared Cultural Memory', 2013), and Actual Arts collective ('Grey Interiors', 2021).

These five days will encompass an exploration of Actress' unique work in progress, and an insight into the foundations and building blocks of his practice, which is defined as "R&B Concrete". We'll expand over topics such as where/how to start your process, and how to derive sonic colour from non-specific sounds; we'll explore Young Paint, the AI with which Darren collaborates, and we'll directly examine elements of his upcoming album to illustrate all these concepts and more.



WHERE AND WHEN?

The course takes place at our residential centre in Aulus les Bains. It's two hours south of Toulouse, high in the French Pyrenees, very near the border with Spain. For detailed travel information, see the transport section. The course starts on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. We advise that you arrive the evening before (11/07/2023) - dinner and accommodation that night is included. The course runs for five days, ending on Sunday night. Accommodation on Sunday night is included, then we leave on Monday morning (17/07/2023). If you decide to take the minibus with us, you will be picked- up in Toulouse at 6pm on 11/07/2023, and will be back in Toulouse at 11am on 17/07/2023.

HOW TO BOOK

To book your place on the course, click the button in the green section above. You won't pay anything right now - we'll send you a booking confirmation email with everything you need to know next. Your place is reserved without payment for three days.

You'll find a payment link in the booking confirmation email - follow the link to make a payment (either in full, or the first payment of a month payment plan). In the latter case, a monthly payment plan will be put in place, so your card will be charged 1/ of the fee today, and 1/ each month (on the same day) for an additional -1 months. All card payments are handled by Stripe, and are extremely secure. We don't store any card data ourselves - all of this is handled securely off-site by Stripe. If you have a discount or grant code, you will be able to add it when you follow the payment link in your confirmation email.

Once you've made a payment, you'll receive another email containing your receipt, links to resources, contact information and access to our group chat to discuss the workshop with other participants.