Are you Hyper Functional? Artists respond to the idea of wellness | Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy

Are you feeling Hyper Functional? Vivienne Griffin, Florence Peake, Rowdy SS & Rebecca Bellantoni respond to the idea of wellness, described as the optimization of mental and physical wellbeing.

Time and again we find we cannot measure up to impossible demands, frustrating ourselves. Those who do not or cannot conform to wellness culture risk the contempt of those on its tyrannical treadmill.

Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy took place during January and February 2020 at Somerset House Studios with a programme that asked us to reconsider well-being in new and unexpected ways, a refreshing antidote to the vast wellness industry that has fuelled societal pressures to conform, often creating an unrealistic and anxiety-inducing desire to be healthy, happy and productive.

UN–NOW is a group workshop by Vivienne Griffin where voices were digitally modified in unison to explore dissonance, vocal fry, polyphonic harmonies, speaking in tongues, drone, noise and fake laughter. 

Florence Peake presents CAVE. There is a tidal cave on the Jurassic coast, South West England. It is a site of retreat and refuge from the world for only 3 hours before it is again submerged by the sea. A place of dark, wet sanctuary, the cave has become Peake’s lover. 

London is noisy; sirens, drilling, honking, shouting, the endless grind of traffic. The Tube. From stress, to heart disease to type 2 diabetes, research suggests noise pollution creates problems for people's health. For 10 years Rowdy SS has been recording London's damaging noise, in this new work he remixed an archive to create a soundscape for healing.

Produced by Femi Oriogun-Williams for Reduced Listening. Commissioned by Somerset House Studios.