COMMS FAIL

Roy Claire Potter’s new sound installation extends a live performance first staged in Liverpool and broadcast on Resonance FM, into a month-long listening environment.

COMMS FAIL is an evolving project, moving across performance, radio, exhibition and publication. Each version builds from the last and is shaped by its new presentation context. 

In the gallery, sound from the performance is reworked. Script material is re-recorded, and elements of the original score by composer Carmel Smickersgill are rearranged into a new sonic environment. Sculptural props from the performance, including large translucent drawings, are transformed into sounding objects, with audio carried through their surfaces.

The work is shaped by an autistic approach to communication, where meaning is not only carried by words but through pattern, rhythm, texture and environment. Sound moves through objects, surfaces and bodies, suggesting a form of connection where materials are active participants in how communication is made and felt.

Alongside the exhibition, a new booklet produced with Café OTO and published through their new imprint OTOHON, gathers script material and visual scores from the work, inviting visitors – and audiences elsewhere – to imagine or re-stage their own versions of COMMS FAIL.

Join us on Friday 26 June, 6-8pm to celebrate the opening.

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About the artist

Roy Claire Potter is an artist writer who performs, exhibits and publishes.

Across their multidisciplinary practice – spanning experimental writing, vocal performance, drawing, sound art and installation – they build stories from fragmented, intense images depicting moving bodies, domestic scenes or architectural settings. An interest in communication constraints, subtext and narrative sequencing shapes this work, which often explores complex group dynamics or the aftermath of violent events, sometimes with a wilful humour. They frequently collaborate with musicians and sound artists for radio and festival contexts.

COMMS FAIL is an Unlimited Partner Award 2025 commission with Liverpool Biennial, made possible by Arts Council England. Research and development was generously supported by an artist residency award with Art Explora, Paris at Cite International des Arts.