Experimentica

On a cold weekend in October 2001, Chapter presented a 'hot mix' of experimental live art under the name Experimentica and for the past 25 years, it’s been a wellspring of strange and wonderful delights, a place of ferment where co-conspirators gather, where artists and audiences are invited to take risks and try something new. For its 25th year, we're looking back at this legacy and forward to what comes next: for the festival, and for the live art ecology in and beyond Wales. This means a renewed commitment to championing artists and creating the conditions for live practice to thrive. From 22-24 October, artists will take over the building with new and one-off performances. Join us for this special edition of the festival. __________ Programme Thursday 22 October tactileBOSCH: The Thursday Show Opening Experimentica 2026, in celebration of their shared birthdays, Experimentica and tactileBOSCH join forces for a special edition of the Thursday Show, featuring Nerida Bradley, Emma Brennan, Jayne Cherry, Jake Wood and Lewis Prosser. ___ Friday 23 October Giles Bailey: A Flickering Space Where the Deed Dissolves A live sharing of performance knowledge drawn from ten years of TALKER, Giles' interview zine about performance. Using two live-feed cameras and two record players, the piece collages interviews with performance-makers into a constellation of accumulating actions, exploring how a publication might become a live, generative space. Rhys Slade-Jones: Hatchet, your head, the dead, pottery and pipes (things which are buried) A spotlight, a drone and a performer move through a theatre occupied by wheels and reflections, where things are not quite what they seem — a hallucinatory piece exploring the strange relationship between entertainment and power, and the overlap between technologies of spectacle and technologies of war. Samra Mayanja: THE CALL CENTRE A performance programme dedicated to the voice and the unspeakable. Artist Samra invites contemporary artists, writers and translators that she's obsessed with to share a new work that is followed by a silly (but deeply serious) Q&A. ___ Saturday 24 October Test Dept and Brith Gof: Gododdin Remembered / Cofio Gododdin A special event marking the relaunch of the Gododdin soundtrack and reuniting the artists who created it for a celebration of a landmark in Welsh performance and music history. Dana Michel: FOR REAL FOR REAL A durational work-in-progress in our Community Garden, following a residency at Chapter exploring land and survival. Martin O'Brien: PROCESSION The result of a three-day intensive workshop (21–23 October) led by Martin with eight Wales-based artists. Drawing on Martin's long-standing use of procession as a form, one that stretches duration and complicates the relationship between performer and spectator, the group present a series of processions and crossings moving through the building. Jennifer Taylor: CRYOGENESIS An elaborate ceremony of ritual and absurdity staged within an immersive, illuminated set. Malfunctioning technology, decaying plastics and tangled wiring are repurposed into ornate costumes for performers engaged in obscure, focused ritual activity, exploring ancient mysticism, magic and posthuman futures. Mars Saude: Negation An illustrated lecture performance using looping 16mm projections, narrative text and sound to explore invisibility and creative destruction – connecting ideas from anarchist history, psychoanalysis, climate nihilism and AI through the question of how to film what resists being seen. Supported by the Gulbenkian Exhibitions Fund. Anne Bean: Iff Iff uses 25 re-igniting candles, extinguished by a breathy, jumbled vocalisation, in an improvisation developed in collaboration with Chapter's Senior Technician, Dan Young. The piece was born from a chance meeting between Bean and Young while she was planning the work, and reflects on how memory and experimental arts history are held within Chapter's building.