Music is a structural force that runs through much of Mark Leckey’s work. Early video pieces, like Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) and large-scale installations such as Sound System (2011) or GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction (2010) employ rhythm as an aid to narrative, often using the electronic music genre along with the nostalgia and popular culture surrounding it as a central theme of his work. This is evident in his video editing style, which draws from DJ techniques, such as sampling, looping, and building tension through repetition.

Leckey often describes music as his first point of cultural access. Growing up outside elite artistic circles, collective experiences like rave parties and pirate radio culture served as spaces of aesthetic and emotional education. Since 2016, he hosts monthly sessions as a DJ for NTS Radio, an online open platform dedicated to electronic music. Here, Leckey freely shares his eclectic taste via thematic playlists and collaborations with a variety of artists.

Much of Leckey’s aesthetic education came from music videos, late-night TV, bootlegs, magazines, pirate radio, and the internet, channels that provided access and a sense of belonging that formal education did not. His work reflects this alternative path, blending art historical imagery with references that bypass the academic canon in favor of an unofficial and emotional knowledge, based on intuition.

I guess it’s a matter of taste, but for me it’s about a reduction into something
tangible. When music becomes like matter. Reggae does it in an obvious way,
through bass; frequencies that physically affect your body. But I don’t know
“where” music is. You say it’s ineffable and disembodied, but when you listen to
music, it’s still a recording, a secondhand experience. Music has a very confusing
state of being.

Mark Leckey

Mark Leckey, 2025. Photo: Alessandro Raimondo.