Assembly
Somerset House Studios

Rage: Puce Mary, NAKED + John Bence

Part of Assembly

Wed 14 Nov 2018
19.00 for 19.30 start
& 20.30 for 21.00 start, £12.00

Limited capacity. Latecomers will not be admitted. 

The Deadhouse
Enter via New Wing

Extreme electronics, industrial noise and violent choral compositions in three acts - curated by Agnes Gryczkowska of NAKED:

Puce Mary – London premiere of The Drought, NAKED – new installation and performance work, John Bence – performing Kill.

Utilising the architecture of the Deadhouse, an underground tunnel beneath the Somerset House courtyard housing the remnants of a former chapel, ASSEMBLY opens with a ceremonial procession through viscerality, frenzy, unsettling narratives, and power struggle, with the self, loved ones and societal forces. Each corridor of the space will be owned by a different act, each act taking you to the edge.

NAKED debut new performance and installation The Cage - an intense and visceral experience, aiming to create an unflinching statement of self-empowerment. In The Cage everyone becomes both hostage and accomplice of the ‘system’ - the global situation, as a result of the political instability, economic uncertainty and social anxiety. The Cage questions and explores freedom, control, abolishment of hierarchies and refusal to dominate and be dominated. NAKED are Agnes Gryczkowska and Alexander Johnston, a duo engaging with noise, industrial and extreme forms of electronic music.

NAKED thumbnail.jpg

NAKED by Arturs Pavlovs
NAKED by Arturs Pavlovs

Puce Mary is the solo moniker of Danish experimental artist Frederikke Hoffmeier, a project growing out of the same soil as Copenhagen based label Posh Isolation. Her compositions manifest an ongoing power struggle within the self towards preservation, whilst the traumatised body serves as a dry landscape where obscured memories and escape mechanisms fold reality into fiction, making sense of desire, loss and control. Since 2013 Puce Mary has showed intimate and confrontational performances throughout the world. Her new album The Drought was released on PAN on the 05 October 2018.

Puce Mary 1.jpg

Puce Mary by Klaus Totzler
Puce Mary by Klaus Totzler


John Bence is a composer and producer whose work tackles epic narrative themes and uncompromising sonics with a juddering emotional punch. His new release Kill, on Yves Tumor's Grooming label, is his first new work since the Disquiet EP. Kill is a piece in three movements: Kill/Aftermath, Alone/Suicide, Afterlife/Judgement, each of them equally sublime and abrasive. Bence’s live performance is as distorted as it is commanding, and morphs his intense operatic voice and body convulsions into an overwhelming emotional frenzy.

john Bence.jpg

John Bence


Please note this is an 18+ event

This event is taking place in a confined space

Flashing light and strobe effects will be used at this event

Latecomers will not be admitted

The Cage is supported by Arts Council England National Lottery funding