Q&A

Cos Ahmet

Cos Ahmet

What’s your background?

Originally from London, I now live and work in the Liverpool region, where I share a studio space at The Royal Standard. My practice started out in sculpture and installation, and has evolved to include performance, the moving image and collaboration.

What influences you artistically?

There is no denying that the human subject and material matters have an impact on my practice. I am attracted to the everyday, mundane or domestic materials. I tend not to use them as presented, preferring to change their original purpose to fabricate a new language – their non-human condition provokes me to give them a different meaning and place in my practice.

The sound a material transmits also intrigues me. I hear them in a particular way when working or performing with them – they translate as ‘inverted audios’ – this is how they sound to me in that moment, so typically, a reversed sound or audio often become part of a work. This tentative play with sound as a sculptural device creates a form of sonic material in response to discourses around choreography and new materialism, bringing attention to the somatic engagement with bodies both human and object-material related.

One of many contextual influences surrounding these discourses include the writing of visual artist and philosopher, Erin Manning – author of ’Always More Than One: Individuations Dance’, where my interest in the choreographic object grew.

How do you start a new work?

A new work always begins with a basic idea behind it, but I prefer not to over think how I start a new piece. Instead, the mix of a general idea or direction together with the ‘unknown or chance’ moment, often referred to as a happy accident, can present an impromptu response that feeds into a work.

What are you working on right now?

I am working with fellow artist and collaborator, Gary Finnegan. We have worked on various film and sound installation projects. Our work is an ongoing dialogue where our diverse practices become enhanced when our works merge with one another. Collaboration casts a fresh eye on a way of working and thinking. We both work on the basis that we only disclose or reveal what we have worked on when we bring it back to the studio, and this is the stage that I find interesting – the parallels or cross-over of concepts, and occasionally imagery, that emerges between the films when they come together. Our collaborative approach is one that places no compromise on each others methods, so are able to retain those characteristics that our own work and individual practices hold.