Masters at Work: a year of postgraduate projects at Lakota

Our Bristol MA students took over one of the city's best known venues for a free public showcase, turning a year of research and studio work into six hours of installations and live performance.

MA students from dBs Institute Bristol took over Lakota for Masters at Work, an annual showcase of the projects they have developed across the year. The exhibition included a number of fixed works installed in the bar area and live performances later in the evening.

The afternoon was built around free roaming, so visitors could move through the space at their own pace and spend as long as they wanted with each piece. The fixed works took in a listening party, a set of headphone pieces, a sound installation and a resourcing project.

"Our postgraduate exhibition was a display of talent in the creative audio and visual industry," said Adam Berwick, Industry Liaison at dBs Institute. "All the projects were perfectly nuanced, so no matter what level you were joining our event at, there was something for everyone to explore and interact with. From creative samplers and scores to banging live sets, the event had a style that we could all relate to and appreciate."

The pieces were varied enough that any obvious throughline was hard to pin down, which Adam saw as part of the point. "In my opinion, the level of quality connects the pieces together. They may not all necessarily be similar in concept, but they all have a quality that makes engaging and interacting with the projects a total joy."

Later in the evening, the focus moved into the club space, where two students performed on the 8.1 system, using multichannel playback to move sound around the room and place the audience inside the work rather than in front of it. A live set in the DJ area closed the exhibition.

That shift changed the character of the night. "One of the elements that I loved about the performances was that they were all relatively spontaneous," Adam said. "Each performance had its own level of improvisation. The fixed exhibitions worked within a set of boundaries, and the performances were in the hands of the performers, who could tap into the spontaneity of human automation."

The evening also came with an unusual backdrop. A partial solar eclipse was visible over Bristol from 6.17pm, peaking at 7.12pm, so the first performances began as the light outside started to change.

Putting student work into a working venue is a deliberate part of how the MA runs, and the value of it lasts well beyond the night itself.

"Even if they don't move forwards with their projects, it's still a huge personal achievement to design, compose and build something and present it," Adam said. "The progression arc isn't always linear, and most of the time that's the fun aspect of this industry. Some students may take this Masters project and run with it, building it and shaping it into their new visions. It's fantastic for confidence and I'm sure they'll continue to keep innovating."

For anyone weighing up postgraduate study, his answer was short. "Why not? The breadth of learning and exploration is so expansive yet personal. You can really tailor it to your interests, and the course supplies the resources and knowledge from people who are at the heart of creativity."

Considering a Masters?

You can find out more about postgraduate study at dBs Institute on our MA course pages.