Michael Prior, Slow Air, Mixed media (installation view

Michael Prior works across several disciplines to create works that are tactile, immersive and playful, allowing chance elements to emerge within fixed structures. Slow Air, is an installation of ephemeral and responsive works. For this exhibition, Prior’s sculptural devices focus on unseen forces at play, composing them into layers of sounds and gestures with actions and reactions, causes and consequences. The work in Slow Air consists of mechanical sculptures, multiple sound sources and video. Applying playful spontaneity to the material, objects are activated to create a network of rhythm, gestures and relationships.

Prior’s works activate materials in unexpected ways to create self-generating compositions of motion and sound. Elements emerge from a process of play, improvising with materials to explore their innate properties. Prior investigates the behaviour of the object rather the object itself, uncovering universal patterns.