Still from the video work CRUSH by Carolin Meyer.
Book tickets
For the next iteration of PULSE, School of the Damned presents work across moving image, performance and sound, exploring the concept of 'conjuncture': moments when social, political and material contradictions intensify and overlap. Over three days, these ideas will unfold in the Upper Gallery.
Taking Stuart Hall’s concept of the conjuncture as a starting point, the installation considers a present shaped by overlapping crises, shifting social geographies and unstable relationships between individuals and systems. The presentation opens with performances on Friday evening and runs through to Sunday.
Featuring work by Ben Hartley, Carolin Meyer, Daisy C, George Valentine, Ollie Godwin, Titus Barker, K.L.Brown and collaborators.
PULSE is our platform for emerging interdisciplinary and collaborative practices, supporting artists to experiment with new ideas and forms.
Taking Stuart Hall’s concept of the conjuncture as a starting point, the installation considers a present shaped by overlapping crises, shifting social geographies and unstable relationships between individuals and systems. The presentation opens with performances on Friday evening and runs through to Sunday.
Featuring work by Ben Hartley, Carolin Meyer, Daisy C, George Valentine, Ollie Godwin, Titus Barker, K.L.Brown and collaborators.
PULSE is our platform for emerging interdisciplinary and collaborative practices, supporting artists to experiment with new ideas and forms.
Bios
School of the Damned is an alternative arts and education platform based across the UK. It was founded in 2014 as a direct reaction to the increasing financialisation of Higher Education and operates without tuition fees. The course is entirely peer led and self-directed with each year designing its own curriculum. Its structure is decentralised with a continual aim to dissolve hierarchies through rigorous self-critique. After two years, the cohort finishes by choosing its successors with no one carrying over.
Ben Hartley is a Bristol-based artist working across sculpture and craft. Their practice explores dichotomies between deep history and contemporary industrial materiality, reimagining ancient craft processes for a speculative future, while re-centring the importance of the handmade against a backdrop of a machine made reality.
Carolin Meyer (b. 1991, Germany) is an artist & DJ based in London, who mainly dabbles in found objects, sculptural still lifes, the abject, and ecstatic participation. Shaped by her experience of transracial adoption at birth (Kurdish-German), she translates modes of (dis) embodiment into viscerally affective sculptures, moving image, installations, sound, painting/digital image/collage, text, and live art. Areas of interest widely include identity and belonging, techno-social transformations, neoliberalism, bio politics, and de-anthropocentrism.
Daisy C's work uses the process of image making, tracing and deconstructing, referencing in the process. She has created work that has previously become moving image, sculpture, animation and drawings.
George Valentine Avill’s practice centres the archiving and personal excavation of the trans identity. His written work explores the identification and mediation of self through visual objects. George's often auto-ethnographic approach attempts to flesh out an understanding of transness with veeringly uncomfortable candour.
K.L.Brown is an artist and writer from East Kent. Her practice is rooted in drawing and she works primarily from body and ground. She is the co-founder of The Body Room, a participatory and immersive experience, established in 2019.
Ollie Godwin is an artist living and working in London. His work explores archival and collaborative practices, rituals, collecting, prophecy, repetition, improvisation, diary making, isolation, belief, systems of control. He is a founding member of Needless Alley Performance Collective, current guitarist and singer for SHIFTS and BIMP, and co-founder of Sunday Sound Church.
Titus Barker is an artist from London. Their artwork engages in sonic, moving image and pedagogical practices. For PULSE, Titus focuses on societal results from the near past. They use performance, video and sound to explore the antiquated by resurrecting and ritualistically sacrificing. A continual readjustment and assessment of our relationship with self-machinery.
Book tickets
Fri, 23 Oct 2026
Upper Gallery
06:30 pm
Sat, 24 Oct 2026
Upper Gallery
12:00 pm
Sun, 25 Oct 2026
Upper Gallery
12:00 pm
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Upper Gallery
- The Upper Gallery is situated on the first floor of the building. A wheelchair-accessible ramp to the Upper Gallery is available via Carlton House Terrace.
- We provide Sensory Maps and Large Print Guides, these can be found at the information & sales desk
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email access@ica.art
- If you have other access requirements, need more info, or want to contact us, go to the Access Page
The exhibition is free, but performances are ticketed. Booking is recommended for both.
Friday 23 October
6:30 pm – Doors
7:30pm – Performances
Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 October
12 – 6pm – Exhibition open
Members+ and all Patrons gain free entry to all cinema screenings, exhibitions, talks, and more.
Join today as a Member+ for £25/month.
Image Courtesy of Ollie Godwin
George Valentine
Image Courtesy of Ben Hartley
Image Courtesy of Daisy C
K.L.Brown
Carolin Meyer
Titus Barker
