Looking back on Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast

Documentation of Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast — 13 March 2026. Video copyright Chris McCann Videography.

On 13 March 2026 we played Fingerprints for two public audiences — a matinee and an evening performance — in the theatre upstairs at The MAC, Belfast, while Heidi Nguyen worked live with pairs of musicians in The Crush downstairs at the same time. After all the rehearsing, all the months of building and rebuilding MarkSynth, it was finally a piece happening in front of a room of people.

The moment I was watching for most was the very first one. As the audience came in, the projection was already alive but quiet — breathing at the edge of perception, stirred only by feet shuffling and chairs scraping. Some people noticed straight away. Others only gradually realised the wall was listening.

From there it was a real improvisation. Sometimes the visuals led, sometimes they followed; sometimes I steered hard and sometimes I let the room push them around. By the close the performers had gradually disappeared again, a solo violin carrying the final stretch, until only a residual fingerprint of the performance was left on the wall.

Videos of both the matinee and the evening performance, along with stills, audience reactions, ensemble details, and the organisations that made it possible, are over at performancefingerprints.com.