ASMR is Auto Sensory Meridian Response.

The ‘response’ is a pleasurable tingling sensation on and around the scalp, caused by certain ‘triggers’. More often than not ASMR has a strong connection to intimacy, although pleasant and intimate does not equate to sexual.

You may know of ASMR through its community of millions of youtube users. They are (mostly) young female artists staring earnestly into the camera as they gently caress microphones and domestic objects.

ASMR videos are a shortcut to the physical remnants of intimacy. They are created to replicate distinct sensations of stimulation to a diverse but invisible community of ASMRers. The imagination behind this clandestine physicality is superficially intersected with roleplays of mystic hypnosis, new-age relaxation and shamanic rituals.

Tune in with headphones to hear a live binaural sound work using familiar ASMR triggers and the female gaze. Marie Toseland and Sophie Mallett team up to explore the sonic results of an online obsession with intimacy.

Marie Toseland is an artist currently based in London. She works across sound, object making, photographic practices, and performance. Her interests include (but are not limited to) the voice and lyricality of speech; female sexuality; and the process of memorialisation and dread of forgetting. She is an associate at Open School East, London. Forthcoming exhibitions include The Sunday Painter, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, and Hauser & Wirth.

Sophie Mallett is a London based artist and radio producer exploring sound through the social, and the social through sound. Her background in music, radio and documentary have led to a practice that focuses on sounds’ intersection with affect, politics and value. She is currently an associate at Open School East, working with experimental musician Robbie Judkins as Nim and hosts Sonic Blind Dates on Resonance FM. sophiemallett.com