LUX Scotland - Compressed and Re-expanded | Three films by Jenny Brady

LUX Scotland are delighted to present a special screening event featuring Jenny Brady’s work which explores the fragile, intricate mechanisms that shape how we communicate. Brought together for the first time, Brady’s films ‘Receiver’ (2019), ‘Music for Solo Performer’ (2022) and ‘The Glass Booth’ (2025) will be presented with audio description made in collaboration with access worker and accessibility consultant Elaine Lillian Joseph. The screening will be followed by an in-conversation with Jenny Brady and a guest speaker. 

This event is presented as part of We Contain Multitudes and will be followed by a workshop with Jenny Brady the following day. 

Jenny Brady’s practice is captured distinctly in her three most recent films that explore the limits and possibilities of various modes of sonic, cinematic, technological and interpersonal communication. Bringing together various historic references, archival material, lived experiences and communication technologies, the work confronts multiple subjectivities that emerge from acts and forms of translation, mediation, interpretation and transmission. Highlighted by Brady’s characteristic filmic assemblages where hierarchies of speech, text, definition and language are challenged, the faults and spaces that are revealed by these technologies are uncovered as fragile, vital, often violent and structurally unstable but equally expansive forms of communication. As such, Brady’s films incorporate the perspectives of d/Deaf, disabled and non-English speaking subjects. These three films denote the beginning of Brady’s engagement with access measures, collaborating with access workers to create open captions and audio description for her work. 

About the three films 

In ‘Receiver’ (2019) a crossed telephone line propels us into a suite of heated and intimate conversations in which we encounter scenes of protest at a university for deaf students, Q&A cross-fire interrogation, vocal confrontations and lip-reading practice. In its various moods the film presents a heady and multi-layered assemblage of Deaf history, drawing on research into The Milan Conference of 1880 (The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf was an international conference of deaf educators) which led to a ban on teaching sign language in schools for the deaf. In considering how we both speak and listen, ‘Receiver’ reveals communication to be a violent and fragile operation. 

Part-homage, part-sequel, ‘Music for Solo Performer’ (2022) is a filmic reimagining of composer Alvin Lucier’s work for amplified brainwaves, drawing connections between the 1969 composition, speech synthesis and the passing of the filmmaker’s mother. Brady’s disparate assemblage of found sound and image – including EEG analysis, a Jerry Lewis Telethon and the first pizza ordered via synthesized voice – combines to form a densely concentrated transmission of cinematic pleasure, meditating on the relationship between illness and technology with pathos and care. 

Brady’s most recent work ‘The Glass Booth’ casts a cinematic spotlight on the role of the interpreter, revealing their complex role as both witness and mediator. First employed prominently during the Nuremberg Trials, simultaneous interpretation is closely linked to conflict resolution, bilingualism, and the establishment of the United Nations. Through vignettes set in both extreme and familiar environments, the film portrays the processes of listening, speaking, and forgetting within acts of formal and informal interpretation. In this fragmented portrait, ‘The Glass Booth’ highlights the often-hidden work of interpreters and its delicate, intersubjective nature. 

About the artist

Jenny Brady (b. 1983) is an artist based in Dublin, working with the moving image to explore ideas around translation, communication and the relationship between sound, speech and meaning. Her films have been presented at LUX, Projections at the New York Film Festival, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, MUBI, The Essay Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Quote Unquote, Camden International Film Festival, EMAF, Videonale, Experimenta, Images Festival, November Film Festival, the Irish Film Institute, EVA International, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Whitechapel gallery and Tate Liverpool. We Contain Multitudes is a collaborative project that seeks to create systemic change in the Scottish visual arts sector for disabled artists, arts professionals and audiences. The project is a collaboration between Collective, DCA and LUX Scotland and is funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 

We Contain Multitudes is dedicated to helping arts organisations embed anti-ableist practices and build programmes that more accurately reflect the diversity of the Scottish population. It is a process of learning – one that acknowledges the ongoing challenges and recognises that access measures alone are not enough to dismantle ableism. Running until February 2026, each partner will generate a new commission with an artist, Collective commissioned a new solo exhibition by artist and filmmaker Shen Xin, ‘Highland Embassy’ that was presented in Autumn 2025. In February, DCA will present a group exhibition featuring new and existing works by Andrew Gannon, Daisy Lafarge, Jo Longhurst and Nnena Kalu, while LUX Scotland will support a new moving image commission, presented online in March 2026. 

Header image - Jenny Brady, 'The Glass Booth' (2025). Courtesy of the artist and LUX