The Sonic Memorial
The Sonic Memorial
is unique in its kind, because it uses sound as a tool for commemorating, instead of static or moving images.
The Memorial is consisting of two individual sonic art projects –
1. soundCollective – collective trauma, identity and sonic art
2. soundMigration – migration in a global context and sonic art
“soundCOLLECTIVE” – collective trauma, identity and sonic art
was released on 9 November 2015 – commemorating the “Night of Broken Glass” (9 November 1938 /Reichskristallnacht), when the NAZI in Germany were destroying the synagogues nationwide in one single night.
The project, initiated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne would like to sentitize people via sonic art for the phenomenon of collective trauma. The non-visual medium of soundart has a particular potential to express affection via a wide range of soundtools.
SoundLAB has been an active project environment between 2004 and 2010 – featuring each year another edition of soundart online – in total 7 editions – see also https://soundlab.nmartproject.net
Sound artists from all over the world were invited to submit a sound piece dealing with collective trauma. There is no need to go back 70 years ago, but collective trauma happens every day before our very eyes in the media whether via desasters of nature, genocides, the refugees persecuted and expelled from their home countries in Africa or Middle East,. collective trauma is currently touching everyone’s life more or less dramatically. So, it is more than worth to express one’s feelings and emotions via artistic media like soundart.
Since 2016 “soundCOLLECTIVE” is also corporate part of “://self~imaging – artist show face against Intolerance, Racism, Xenophobia and Antisemitism – http://self.engad.org/2016/
soundMIGRATION
has been initiated in 2017 for The W:OW Project – We Are One World – https://wow.nmartproject.net . The title refers to the current global phenomenon of migration, but goes actually down to the philosophical aspect of migrating as an active and evolutionary process in human existence, offering desaster and chance alike.
The invited artists commemorate with sonic associations.
The project of “soundMigration” is including two curators- Wilfried Agricola as the initiator and chief chief curator and as a guest curator – Rainer Krause, a reknown soundartist based in Chile.
CREDITS
“soundCOLLECTIVE” – collective trauma, identity and sonic art
soundMIGRATION – migration in a global context & sonic art
are project initiated and curated by Wilfried AGricola de Cologne
copyright © 2015-2018
All soundart works – copyright © by the artists
soundMIGRATION
soundCollective
Hilda Daniel, Elisabeth Wood, Jing Yu, Cezary Ostrowski, Lristopher reeder, Pit Molling, Martin Klusak, Yaniv Kuris, Pieter Gyselink, Marcus Beuter
Works 1-10
Hilda Daniel (Singapore) ECHOLULLIA, 2015, 3:00 min
Elizabeth Wood (Canada) – Lamentation 2015, : 5 min. 40 sec.
Jing Yu (South Korea) – Daytime: Rebirth of the City, 2015, 7:23
Cezary Ostrowski (Poland) – I Don’t Deny, 2014, 1:32
Kristopher Reeder (UK) – 28 Trombones, 2015, 6:54
Pit Molling (Germany) – Sawtooth, 2015, 5′ 51â€
Martin Klusák (Czech Republic) Princess in the Iron Mask
, 2014
, 15′ 26â€â€¨
Yaniv Kuris (Israel) – Cataclysm II/קט××§×œ×™×–× II
, 2014, 4:59
Music For Installations/Pieter Gyselinck – Synesthesia 2-Identity Crisis, 2013, 5:33
Marcus Beuter (Germany) – forgotten, 2015, 9:59
Hilda Daniel (Singapore) ECHOLULLIA, 2015, 3:00 min
Echolullia is a chorus of lullabies. Beautiful and broken, it is a response to and representation of the psychic violence of the holocaust, of collective trauma, of any kind of genocide. For Echolullia, I asked friends, mothers, to send me a recording of themselves singing a song they used to sing to their babies; the piece also uses other sound incarnations of lullabies. As songs sung to soothe infants, as prayers for safety and happiness, lullabies are an intimate evocation of what is lost in the ravages of collective violence. The name of the piece is derived from “echolaliaâ€, a term used to describe the sounds babies make to mimic those they’ve heard, and the automatic repetition of another’s spoken words (sometimes thought to be a symptom of mental illness). Echo is used in the piece to represent this mimicry, alluding to the title – its sound and meaning; to represent a multitude of voices – the collective; serial repetition (in art) and serial killing (in war); and as a representation of time tumbling in on itself, like a memory of violence recurring. In Echolullia, things start to go backwards, the delicate tynes of a music box twist in a deep bass of dread, words are cut off, bits are displaced, spectred and repeating, sounds and utterances and breathing more expressive than the words they used to be. Like the piece, spiraling in and out of the lullabies, each victim of the collective is some one’s baby, a life cut short, displaced and out of context, out of family, the mother the father hope severed, the sisters the brothers, the friends, multiplying, intimate and singular and resonating outward in ruptures of the psyche, passed on with the stories and songs from generation to generation. A chaos of loss remains behind the words, in every lull and lullaby, its there in every breath.
The singers are Rachael Daniel, Regina Drenik, Joanne Levine, and Linda Midori. They include my sister – whose experience of the holocaust comes from stories of our parents and families in Japanese concentration camps in Singapore during WWII, and my oldest friend, who counsels holocaust survivors. The sounds used include traditional American and French folk songs; a music box playing the melody from Johannes Brahms, op.49, Nr 4 and the same performed by Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861-1936) in 1915; Louisa May Alcott’s poem, Lullaby, read by Ezwa in Belgium in October, 2009; and other songs/recording in the public domain.
Hilda Daniel
Hilda Daniel is a multi-media artist based in New York City (from Singapore and Los Angeles, family from India and Iraq). Her work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals in New York, London, Berlin, Oslo, Dublin, Marseille and other cities in Europe, US, Canada and Mexico – including the Anthology Film Archives, NYC; Oslo Screen Festival; online as a finalist in the SXSWclick festival and as part of Museum of Modern Art’s SoundCloud site for its exhibition on John Cage’s 4’33â€; in curated sound/cinema events at the Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, NYC, the British Library, London, and the Whitworth, Manchester, UK; reviewed in The New York Times, Performance Art Journal, New Art Examiner and other publications.
Elizabeth Wood (Canada) – Lamentation 2015, : 5 min. 40 sec.
I am drawn to make art works focused on the interior self – specifically in the context of loss and vulnerability, and I gravitate to both installation and sound art as the means of reflecting those particular complexities of our inner lives in the most visceral manner possible.
My art practice has been largely text-based and my approach frequently involves the appropriation and re-assembly of evocative words and phrases from art history, literature, opera and popular culture. I am drawn to the reshaping of historical materials, already rich with meaning, in order to release their potential to generate other layers of interpretation or response in fresh conceptual and emotional contexts. In focusing on loss and vulnerability, I attempt to address themes of subjective yet universal experience set against the larger backdrop of life.
In responding to the call out for a sound piece focused on the theme of Collective Trauma, I have selected and re-formed phrases from news events that reflect the brutality that groups of people have inflicted upon others in varying degrees of scale around the world. I have referenced notorious events that we are all familiar with historically, such as the Holocaust and Cambodia, as well as more current atrocities of a relatively smaller scale such as the actions of the drug cartels that inflict ongoing trauma on Mexican communities. The sound piece is structured in the manner of a lament in order to reflect the mourning and sorrow we experience at the pain, suffering and terror caused by these acts. The phrases allude to the collective nature of the trauma inflicted not only upon those who have died or have been forced to await an almost certain death, but also upon the survivors who relive the events, vicariously and relentlessly, in their imaginations.
In the sound piece I refer to 41 sites around the world where brutality has occurred and where subsequent collective trauma has taken root. While these sorts of atrocities continue to occur in various parts of the world with alarming regularity, it is necessary to be selective in presenting a work like this. These particular references attempt to capture the multitudinous ways in which the brutality is manifested and the pervasive trauma is entrenched.
By using phrases from news events, I also seek to draw attention to the impact news coverage has on the listeners and viewers who have had no direct involvement. Although the acts of barbarism we hear about on a nearly daily basis cause significant anxiety, fear and stress for many, for others, the ongoing bombardment of horror may trigger a numbness to the suffering. I hope that by transferring these ‘headlines’ to a work of this sort, some listeners will be re-sensitized to the massiveness of the accumulating atrocities and that sensibilities and responses will be re-awakened.
Through good fortune, I live in a relatively peaceful and politically stable country which embraces diversity and often seems far removed from the devastation experienced elsewhere. Yet through the daily news stories that reach me, I appreciate how depressingly thin the veil of civilization is, and I cannot help but wonder “why them and not me?â€. This art work is my effort to pause and reflect, however momentarily, on the nature of such suffering and the legacy of collective trauma that pervades so many parts of the world.
Lamentation
Auschwitz
In the hills and valleys of Armenia
In the killing fields of Cambodia
In all corners of Rwanda
From the ashes of Ground Zero
In the heat of the Syrian desert
On a desperate journey across the Mediterranean
In the blue sky over Yemen
Beneath the sands of Atacama
In the depth of the Congolese Forest
On the streets of Baltimore
In the turbulent waters of the Black Sea
In the hills surrounding Iguala
Within the homes of Ugandan men and women
On the southern Somali coast
In the cities and towns of Bangladesh
In the faces of girls rescued from Boko Haram
On boats in the Andaman Sea
In a Black church in Charleston
At a university campus in Kenya
On a mountain in northern Iraq
In the villages of South Sudan
In the slums of Burundi
On the island of Sri Lanka
In the green landscape of Ethiopia
In the rain that floods Dohuk
Inside a school in Gaza
In a forested hilltop of Central African Republic
In the bullet holes of a Sarajevo building
At a residential school in Ontario
Within a shopping mall in Nairobi
On a bus in Tel Aviv
Along the American Trail of Tears
Before a silent wasteland in Ukraine
Beneath a dark cloud over Halabja
In Tiananmen Square
Beyond the plains of Nineveh
From the ruins of Nanking
In the port city of Smyrna
In a North Korean prison camp
On a street corner in Havana
Elizabeth Wood
I studied visual art at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and in the Visual Arts program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. My art education began when emphasis was placed on ‘open studio’ investigation as a means of nurturing opportunities for intellectual curiosity and wide-ranging experimentation. My art practice has since evolved in a conceptual manner crossing boundaries into hybrid genres that include text and sound- based work. I am currently exploring the use of the public domain where, removed from the confines of the art gallery, I hope to generate a more poignant visceral and emotional experience for the viewer.
Jing Yu (South Korea) – Daytime: Rebirth of the City, 2015, 7:23
When we talking about the noises of the city, noises from construction site always being the biggest issue. But in some cases, they represent a new hope of a city.
In this sound piece, sound sources are recorded from a construction site in Ya’an, China, a year after a 7.0 earthquake.
Disasters destroyed humans’ lives, reducing the city to a shambles, removing the traces of evolutions. Everything seams to go back to zero. What I’ am eager to find out is the desire for surviving, which pushes human beings keep going on. The things they have suffered, the families and lovers they lost
All of those traumas knocked them down suddenly, yet they get up with strong faiths for reconstruction. Thence, the building fieldis more like a battlefield for rebirth.
Used tools : Zoom H4N Logic X
JING YU
Musician, Sound designer From China, now based in New York
Cezary Ostrowski (Poland) – I Don’t Deny, 2014, 1:32
(I Don’t Deny (also called Best Band Ever) is a short musical manifesto of my attitude towards cooperation for mankind’s development)
Cezary Ostrowski
visual artist and composer, born and living in Poland)
Kristopher Reeder (UK) – 28 Trombones, 2015, 6:54
The seeks to draw upon the ceaseless trauma associated with conforming with broken systems by challenging the institutional model of the ensemble. The Classical ensemble represents broken colonial power systems which force musicians to conform and suffer if they do not conform. This piece deals with and challenges the notion of ensemble and conformity and asks the audience to reflect on the trauma of their own conformity.
.
Kristopher Reeder
Kris Reeder (born 1984) is an Oxford (UK) born Trombonist, Sonic Artist and Composer. Kris Reeder is widely considered to be one of the leading Trombonists of his generation. Kris Reeder has performed alongside world-class musicians and conductors across many genres including: Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Laura Wright (Classical), Pat Thomas, Derek Watkins, Kenny Wheeler and Dennis Rollins (Jazz). Kris Reeder has been broadcast by major international media companies including: BBC television, BBC radio, Sky, ITV and regularly appears in major print media.
EARLY LIFE
Kris Reeder started playing the Trombone at the age of 11 (1996). He was first exposed to Jazz when he participated in a free jazz/performance project when he was 14 (1999), gaining inspiration from the ‘unfinished’ nature of jazz. Kris won a scholarship to study at the world renowned Royal College of Music Junior Department, London at 16 (2001) and went onto win a scholarship to study at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music, London when he was 18 (2003), studying Bass trombone under Bob Hughes FRAM in James Watson’s Brass Department at RAM. As a young professional trombonist Kris has circulated widely with global music icons and has performed alongside Jazz legends such as: Derek Watkins, Kenny Wheeler and Pat Thomas. Kris has performed across London at most of the major concert venues. Kris left the Royal Academy during the second year (2005), to focus on electronic and free jazz music recording.
Pit Molling (Luxembourg) – Sawtooth, 2015, 5′ 51â€
In the summer of 2011 I traveled to Poland to visit the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In my subjective perception the previously absorbed information on the Holocaust were henceforth subject to an emotional and discursive detachment. Where feelings prevail, there will be no room for words. Subsequently, I began producing a series of works entitled Nature morte (Still Life): a set of digital drawings and a sound piece. The latter reflects my personal and concrete memory of the sentiment I felt on the premises.
Confronted with the moral problem of using the Holocaust as an art theme, I wasn’t able to figure out how to represent something as extreme, when theoretically one cannot do so without in some way validating the culture that produced it. After considering the risk of trivializing the issue with my representation, I excluded the project from my artistic work. Not till 2015 I decided to resume the work on the series and to expand it’s concept in theorie on current political tendencies. The call addressed to sound artists for the project soundCOLLECTIVE comes my way at the right time and provides an ideal platform to present the sound piece. Sawtooth from the series Nature morte (2011-2015) is a two-channel, synthetic so-called sawtooth sound. The evolution of the piece is progressive but slow. The industrial, oppressive character is subject to a continuous pressure buildup. At its peak, it draws a fine line between distance and proximity. Designed for headphones, this sound piece was produced in Propellerhead Reason 8 with the plugin Thor and mastered in Pro Tools 11 using the plugins Izotope RX4, Slate Digital VRM, Fabfilter Pro Bundle, Waves Gold Bundle and Audioease Altiverb 7.
Pit Molling
Pit Molling was born 1984 in Luxembourg. He started experimenting with sound and producing electronical pieces at the age of 14. In 2012 he graduated as “Meisterschüler†from the Freie Akademie der bildenden Künste, Essen. As a mixed media artist, he participated in several group exhibitions in Berlin, Essen and Luxembourg and was nominated in 2012 with his concept of Digital Drawings for the Essener Förderpreis. 2014 he began to include sound as a medium in his artistic work. After the premiere of 365 degree – a hand drawn digital movie realised in collaboration with his younger brother, Max Molling – which for the occasion was presented with a live performance of the Luxembourg Studio Orchestra at the Philharmonie Luxembourg in April 2014, Pit Molling was nominated for the international digital art award The Lumen Prize. In 2014 and 2015 the film was presented within the framework of The Lumen Prize Exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, at the Institute of Technology on Broadway in New York as well as in Amsterdam, Cardiff and in London. During the Museum’s Night in October 2014, 365 degree was projected on the front of the Musée national d’histoire et d’art in Luxembourg City.
Martin Klusák (Czech Republic) Princess in the Iron Mask
, 2014
, 15′ 26â€â€¨
The composition created for the 25th anniversary of the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution is concerned with the topic of “iron curtains†of today, and by means of free fiction it reflects upon the specific realities of the relationship between the Czech Republic and North Korea after 1989. Main inspiration were stories of North Korea refugees which were published in a lengthy article in the National Geographic, dated February 2009 – and especially the 2006 reports of the sociologist Marie JelÃnková about North Korea women in the Czech Republic, as well as my own interview with JelÃnková.
I have chosen the form of radiophonic fiction with a reduced amount of dialogue. My template for the form is the non-verbal sound cinematography, i.e. films in which the leading dramatic role is given to other means of film speech rather than to words – camera shots, the set-up of the scene, action and movement, cut, sound etc. The form is also inspired by a contemporary popular genre of docufiction (documentary fiction) in which the authorial aesthetics is achieved by the director’s purposeful manipulating or influencing the recorded reality without necessarily setting up a clear border between reality and fiction. Although the composition does contain dialogues, I endeavor to withdraw from the traditional verbal approach of a radio play, and by means of mere sound I try to convey the imagination of a film image and story.
In the composition, I work almost exclusively with sounds I recorded myself, some of which were grabbed at the true locations of North Korean laborers’ stories (Khabarovsk, a Russian far eastern city, or a Czech town Beroun).
Martin Klusák (b. 1987)
began to compose music in relation to his sound and music production for films. He has been involved in filmmaking since 2006 as a student of the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. Later on he also started working as an independent sound designer. In 2010 he began to study composition at the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) with Professor Ivana Loudová and he gradually became focused on concert works as well. During his short time of working in this area, he has won a range of awards, such as the first prizes of the Prague Philharmonic Choir’s competition (Prague, 2012) and of the Generation Competition at the JanáÄek May Festival (Ostrava, 2014), the audience prize in the Berg Orchestra’s competition (Prague, 2013), the award for the best Czech electroacoustic composition in the Musica Nova Competition (Prague, 2011, 2014), etc. As the producer of the sound part he contributed to a feature film, The Great Night (Velká noc), which won the first prize at the International Documentary Film Festival in Jihlava in 2013.
Yaniv Kuris (Israel) – Cataclysm II/קט××§×œ×™×–× II
, 2014, 4:59
’The hatred which had again erupted against the Jews in Hungary, is similar to the earthquake on the island, of which we had heard today; Like flames rising from the fires of Isavia, or the eruption of the volcanoes in the provinces of Java; For the anxiety of one’s spirit and essence! It is also beyond science and is also incomprehensible!’
Old Jerusalem, 1883. My great-great-grandfather, David Baumgarten, the Jewish correspondent of ‘Hamagid’ newspaper, writes an article about the famous blood libel of Tiszaeszlár, a small village in Hungary, which happened in 1882. Although the defendants were acquitted eventually, but the Tiszaeszlár affair, the trial and its consequences led to Pogroms throughout Hungary ​ in 1882 and 1883. In this particular paragraph Baumgarten mentions the Krakatoa eruption which, along with the tsunami which followed, led to the death of at least 35,000 people in south-east Asia, in the Antisemitic context.
David Baumgarten’s linkage of the two events – a force majeure and a man-made disaster is​ ​
religious in essence: Man depends on the heavens, and Baumgarten, in his home in Jerusalem, watches without being able to do anything, but is probably able to find some consolation in his religious belief. The helplessness and the place of man in the face of cataclysm cry out when reading his text from 1883, but is a non-religious modern day man able to find a way to ease the fear, can he find reason in the unbelievable horror, while watching it unfold?
Cataclysm II/קט××§×œ×™×–× II uses texts about the Tiszaesler blood libel from Hamagid as well as eye-witness accounts of the Krakatoa disaster as source materials.
Yaniv Kuris (b. 1973)
is a sound-artist and musician based in Jerusalem, Israel. His works involve various methods of composition, experiments in sound and music, soundscapes, sometimes involving the use of text and multi-media collaborations. He has also made some soundtracks, sound installations, and in 2013 released his debut album, titled ‘Works’.
Music For Installations/Pieter Gyselinck – Synesthesia 2 – Identity Crisis, 2013, 5:33
One of the side-effects of abundant mass-media and social connection is the wide spreading of images and footage about people lost, on the run, in crisis. These social connections also make it possible to have a massive spread-out of lies, denial and insults countering these collective traumas. This contrast between reality and denial almost certainly can causes collective damage on the identity of these fugitives or prisoners of conflict. The connection with the submitted soundscape lies in this feeling of lost identity, this uncertainty of life and future, this pain of being alive.
MFI had a connection with individual trauma in earlier work. This music broadens the project into the collective plan. Originally this music is a part of a cycle of soundscapes influenced by nature sounds and effects. These are used, transformed and reinjected as drones. Let this track be a way of communication between this identity loss and the world standing around it, possibly ignoring or minimizing it.
Music For Installations (author: Pieter Gyselinck)
Music for installations has the purpose of seeking out the perpetuum mobile in music. The idea behind the music is to draw the listener completely into a sonic scape. The accent is more on the impact of the sound as a whole, as a provocation to get emotions or reactions out of the listener.
Marcus Beuter (Germany) – forgotten, 2015, 9:59
War is an extraordinary situation for societies. It creates collective traumas and the aftermath stays mainly for people who experienced it. War is always present, there are always wars. In countries of peace we are used to get information or at least opinions about some of the current wars. They seem to drop on and off the agenda without any influence of the consumer of news.
So many wars have been forgotten, so much distruction dropped out of our focus.
The piece forgotten is about a place where war has been, where several times collective traumas occurred. It is a place where is no peace until today.
In december 2011 I travelled with two french artists to Nagorno-Karabach, a non-recognised state in South Caucasus. The war about this territory has taken place after the end of the Soviet Union. For more then 20 years exists a cease-fire, but no peace treatment.
On the eastern border of Nagorno-Karabach is a buffer zone by the Armenian and Karabachian army. Officially territory of Azerbaijan, it is a no man’s land. Here are the remnants of the city of Agdam, which has been razed.
One of the artists and I decided to visit this former city. The piece forgotten is based on recordings I did from the moment we got up that morning, our breakfast with our host, the travel to the capital, in order to get a visa to be allowed to go to an archaelogical excavation close to the border, on the travel there, the talk with people in a museum who organised us a taxi to bring us into this devastated place until we got into the taxi again to go back to our host.
We stayed for approximately four hours at this place where has been a city before. It has been abandoned, controlled by the army.
We split up to be alone with this extraordinary situation.
After a while a dog tried to chase me. A young man accoured and asked me to follow him. He led me to one of the five houses I saw which still have a roof. He with two other man used it as a stable for their flock of sheep. They offered me tea, gave a lamb on my lap and even if we couldn’t talk to each other as we didn’t share any language we sat together for one hour.
It was a striking moment, to find life in the middle of a totally devastated place.
Afterwards I walked the streets again, tried to document the silence, the absence of the former city life.
There are several information about the population figure of Agdam when it got destroyed. 50.000 is the number that circulates regulary. 50.000 people had to flee or died. Everyone who survived got traumatised.
The title of this piece is forgotten, because the conflict is forgotten, the people are forgotten. It is not a particular piece about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is not a statement towards or against any party of conflict. Agdam is in this moment a synonym for all forgotten places of violent conflicts, of war situations, of destruction caused by humans.
Marcus Beuter
was born in 1968 in Wuppertal, Germany. Sound artist and composer of electro acoustic music. Journeys through Europe, Iran, Pakistan, Laos, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Gambia, Senegal, USA, Georgia, Armenia. Co-founder of fragmentrecordings. Sound installations, electroacoustic compositions, free improvisation. Member of Cooperativa Neue Musik and part of the head of DEGEM. Several Ensembles – e.g. TATUNTAT and Ensemble Stationen NRW – and collaboration with musicians and artists of different genres. Liveperformances: in Armenia, Germany, France, Greece, Iran, Italy, Croatia, Macedonia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Hungary. Artist residencies: Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory, Armenia, 2011/2012 AKOS, Armenia, 2013 Divadelni noviny, Czech Republic, 2014 Workshops: listening and voice improvisation with Laureline Koenig 2013, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabach; 2014, Iran field recording 2013, Slovenia; 2015, Germany listening 2013, Bosnia-Herzegowina; 2014, MARTa Germany Sound installations, fixed media (excerpt): schmerz, 2014 the quest, 2013 in the building, 2013 track, 2012 little hums of bangladesh, 2012 sound lines, 2011/12 auguries of innocence, 2011 sitting in a glass house – skimming stones, 2011 rhethororio, 2011 Organisation of festivals and social art: bielefelder SCHWÄRME, 2014 5. Diagonale, 2013 Festivals (excerpt): Fest i Nova’13, Georgia, 2013 Organism of sound – sound of organism, Slovenia, 2013 PNEM Sound Art Festival, NL, 2012 Le Off Avignon, France, 2012 NoiseFloor Festival, Staffordshire, England , 2011
Panagiotis Kokoras, Nigal Tan, Erizonte, Lucas Norer, Christine Renaudat, Edmar Soria, Wonderfeel & Antonio Tesla, Mr. Arnont, Ayse Kucuk, Francois Dumeaux
Works 11-20
Panayiotis Kokoras (Greece) – , Paths of Fear, 2011, 10 minutes
Nigel Tan (Singapore) – The Train of Thought, 2013, 3:56
ERIZONTE (Spain)- “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monstersâ€, 2015, 06:33
Lucas Norer (Austria) – The Lisbon Rote Project, 2013, 15:39
Christine Renaudat (France) – Bloody Spring, 2013, 9’52
Edmar Soria (Mexico) – Morphic Babylonia, 2015, 7’ 05â€
Wonderfeel (Australia) & Antonio Testa (Italy) – Goldness, 2015, 8:58
Mr.Arnont (Thailand) – Nongyao –SkyDrink, 2014, 20
Ayse Kucuk (Turkey) – Cannibalism, 2013, 7:12
François Dumeaux (France) – Ikarusu, 2011, 10′
Panayiotis Kokoras (Greece) – , Paths of Fear, 2011, 10:00
Paths of Fear for electroacoustic sounds was composed during summer 2011. The piece creates a surreal soundscape which toward the end slowly is developing into a heavy industrial delirium, which collapses under own forces. The reality is amplified and the concrète sound is transformed into an abstract sound object. Complex rhythms introduce archaic soundscapes with powerful gestures. Ecological patterns determine the compositional structure and become resources for further development.
Panayiotis Kokoras (Greece, 1974)
studied composition with Yannis Ioannides, Henri Kergomard, and classical guitar with Evangelos Asimakopoulos in Athens, Greece. In 1999 he moved to England for postgraduate study at the University of York where he completed his MA and PhD in composition with Tony Myatt. His works have been commissioned by institutes and festivals such as the Fromm Music Foundation (Harvard), IRCAM (France), MATA (New York), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), ZKM (Germany), IMEB (France), Siemens Musikstiftung (Germany) and have been performed in over 500 concerts around the world. His compositions have received 60 distinctions and prizes in international competitions, and have been selected by juries in more than 200 international calls for scores. He is founding member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA) and from 2004 to 2012 he was board member and president. As an educator, he has taught at the Technological and Educational Institute of Crete, and, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Since fall 2012 he has been appointed Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas. Kokoras’s sound compositions use timbre as the main element of form. His concept of “holophony” describes his goal that each independent sound (phonos), contributes equally into the synthesis of the total (holos). In both instrumental and electroacoustic writing, his music calls upon a “virtuosity of sound,” emphasizing the precise production of variable sound possibilities and the correct distinction between one timbre and another to convey the musical ideas and structure of the piece. His compositional output is also informed by musical research in Music Information Retrieval compositional strategies, Extended techniques, Tactile sound, Augmented reality, Robotics, Spatial Sound, Synesthesia. More information at http://www.panayiotiskokoras.com
Nigel Tan (Singapore) – The Train of Thought, 2013, 3:56
The Train of Thought is a personal reflection on trauma through the recollection of the past. Made up solely of found sound and field recordings recorded in Japan and Singapore, this piece juxtaposes a dialogue with my grandmother in Chinese dialect on the horrifying events during the Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II. Paired with the subtle sound of a moving train, I seek to connect these events linearly in real time.
I wanted to create a collage that well represented the way we think, abstract and discombobulated, creating a tense and uncomfortable space allowing you to fully understand the devastation of war. Even though you might not understand the monologue, there is still a sense of displacement and uneasiness that lingers eerily within my grandmothers’ words.
Memories stand the test of time, unwavered and deeply etched within our subconscious. The Train of Thought represents torment and pain not just of the past but also serves as a constant reminder of the suffering and anguish bestowed upon the innocent. Trauma is universal and one that cannot be reversed.
Nigel Tan
is a composer, sound and video artist who works conceptually with various mediums bearing the weight of unorthodox structure with the blend of electroacoustic aberrant sound. He explores the basis of music through different styles and history bearing in mind the importance of the process within layers of texture. Influenced by experimentalist of film and music from both the eastern and western culture, the pieces churned out are intertwined randomly to reflect change which in turn motivates a purpose. He engages in various forms of mixed media, primarily in the film and visual aspect marrying sight with sound through the blend of the abstract and narrative.
Nigel graduated with a diploma in Film, Sound and Video from Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 2009 and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Music majoring in Interactive Composition from University Of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts in 2014. He is currently doing his Master of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne. His work includes audiovisual installations and site-specific compositions that have been exhibited at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Instinc Gallery Singapore, The Arts Centre Melbourne, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne Zoo, Andy R Salon and The George Paton Gallery. In addition to this, he actively writes music for film/television, mixed media and performance art.
ERIZONTE (Spain)- “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monstersâ€, 2015, 06:33
The”Los Caprichos†suite is a music, video and dance performance created by the company ERIZONTE. The piece was created by Erizonte and Scud Hero, and is inspired by the series of 80 prints
“The Caprichos ” by the renown Spanish painter and print maker Francisco de Goya, always modern in his art and incredibly current in themes chosen.
It is shaped in seven movements. Symphonic timbres are used, as are electro acoustic instruments and other sound elements created especially for this work .
The titles of the movements take the name of each of the themes Goya dealt with in this series of engravings: abuse of power; vices of the clergy; love and prostitution; the lack of education in the village and superstitions, bestiary, witches and fantastic creatures.
Being an ERIZONTE project, we can say that the experimental work is in this case the search to overcome the limitations of physical properties of the classical instruments or own technical implementations thanks the possibilities given to us by the new tools in electronic music.
This is to further the limits of some instruments, while respecting the original personality. For example, the notes a violin can give as if it had six strings, or a classical guitar may sound a tremolo unreachable by a human. The result is a relatively formal work, in keeping with the time of Goya, and where experimental is more than ever at the service of the public, interwoven between
elements of the composition.
Erizonte
is an experimental rock band founded in 2002 by the composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Julian Sanz Escalona, linked to the rock and experimental music scene in Spain since 1982.
In 2003 he published his first album under the name Erizonte, entitled “… I heard rain and paid attention†that includes collaborations with important musicians.
In 2010 his second album “Work in Progress” was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award.
In 2011 he created and produced a multidisciplinary show called “Project Amazon” about the world of water from a philosophical perspective, which premiered that year at the Casa de America in Madrid.
In 2012 the label Munster Records published worldwide a collection entitled “Tension†Experimental Spanish Underground 1980-1985” which includes, along with others of similar characteristics, most of his early bands. Julian Sanz is also curator of this album that has received excellent international reviews.
In 2014, together with Scud Hero he composed a contemporary electro-acoustic suite, divided into seven movements to accompany the exhibition of 80 prints that comprise the series “Los Caprichos” by Francisco de Goya, in 5.1 audio format.
In that year found the Company ERIZONTE to premiere in Berlin “Suite Los Caprichos de Goya†in june.
Lucas Norer (Austria) – The Lisbon Rote Project, 2013, 15:39
The Lisbon Route Project“ sound-installation traces the acoustic paths of one of World War II’s main Jewish escape routes, on which thousands of people fled to Lisbon from the Nazi-terror via Marseille, hoping for a passage over the Atlantic. Lucas Norer visited the historical sites of the escape route and documented his journey through field recordings, literary references and interviews from Shoah archives. The Lisbon Route Project creates awareness of the historic fugitive stories, allowing conclusions on the ongoing situation of migrants in Europe.
Due to the regulations of the soundCOLLECTIVE open call I’ve added only one file which consists purely of interview fragments from the Shoah archives. In case you’re interested I can present the piece as an installation with more sound files (description of installation above).
The sound-installation uses traffic cones and converts them into acoustic horns. In this case, however, the traffic cones highlight not only a place but rather set an acoustic focus. The set-up creates a specific content-related and sonic effect: for the listener the historically distanced events are transferred to the here and now via the amplification and focus of the acoustic horns. Therefore the ephemeral episodes of “The Lisbon Route†bridge the historical and temporal distance in an acoustical way.
Lucas Norer
*1982 in Innsbruck/Austria, lives and works in Vienna and Linz. Lucas Norers works are characterised by an interdisciplinary approach and refer to auditory contents such as production and consumption of music, sound, noise, silence and its relation to social, political, architectural and artistic issues. As part of an extended research and manufacturing process Lucas Norer creates audio-visual installations, objects and projects in the public realm. Lucas Norer works solo and together with the artistcollective FAXEN.
In 2011 he graduated from The University of Art & Design Linz. Since then he has shown his work in gallery spaces, contemporary art museums and festivals including: Sound Development City Lisbon & Marseille, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Manifesta8 – Parallel Events Murcia, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Groce Genoa, EX3 Centro Per L’Arte Contemporanea Florence, Sterischer Herbst Graz, Skulpturenmuseum Marl, The Banff Centre Canada, Steim Amsterdam, Das Weisse Haus Vienna, Kunstpavillon Innsbruck, Galerie 5020 Salzburg.
Winner of European-Soundart-Award 2014.
Christine Renaudat (France) – Bloody Spring, 2013, 9:52
Bloody Spring is a soundscape of the Syrian civil war. It was made with sounds extracted from videos posted on Youtube by civilians and armed groups since 2011 and mixed with parts of french composer Olivier Messiaen’s Oraison (1937). This musical piece is one of the eight movements of his masterpiece Quartet for the end of time, first performed in the Stalag during the Second World War, in 1941. This Quartet became a symbol of one the worst destruction and the symbol of human resistance.
Bloody spring portrays a Syrian revolution systematically and brutally repressed, mostly forgotten by the mass media today. The four parts of this sound piece- Protest, Run, Pray and Die- were made with the voices of the victims: protesters shouting against Assad’s regime, members of the Free Syrian army praying for their dead or injured companions, the voice of the british journalist Mary Colvin killed in Homs in 2012, a little boy singing during his sister burial…This composition draws us to empathize with the millions of persons who have fled Syria since the beginning of the war and those who still live there. Sound has the ability to connect the auditor with this traumatic reality, almost physically. As the composer Pauline Oliveiros wrote: “hearing seems to take place in my stomachâ€. Listening, in this way, is also sharing burdens.
Bloody Spring, (Maldita primavera in Spanish, Fichu printemps, in French) received in a longer version (22 minutes) a Special mention of the Phonurgia Award jury in january 2015 in Paris, and and the first Honorable mention of The Radio International Biennal of Mexico in october 2014.
It was exhibited as a sound installation in November 2013 in Colombia.
Christine Renaudat
French journalist, writer and sound artist. I’ve been living and working for 12 years in Latin America. Since 2012, I’ve been exploring the sounds of violence. My work has been listened in six countries in Latin America, in Spain, France and Belgium It was awarded in Mexico and Paris (Radio International Biennal 2014: second prize for Memorial de voces, and Phonurgia Awards 2015: special mention for Maldita Primavera). In 2013, my piece Memorial de Voces, a sound immersion into Colombia civil war, has been selected, by the Artraker Fund jury (London) to be part of their catalogue (http://www.artraker.org/home/4586150813). In 2011, I published a book against the war on drugs in Latin America (translated to spanish). I also wrote about Human Rights abuses against the migrants and violence in Central America.
Edmar Soria (Mexico) – Morphic Babylonia, 2015, 7:05
Morphic Babylonia is a sonic art piece made of three connected movements directly influenced by the concept of abduction of human awareness through an everlasting and ever changing form of slavery: technological alienation. This idea is allegorically represented by the objet sonore of a tape. The movements create in conjunction a metaphoric cycle of destruction and reconfiguration of certain and specific media formats. There is a huge difference between physical and digital formats; while the last one can be infinitely reproduced and there is no significative difference between each one of the copies of a single file, the physical case is completely opposite and so, it´s destruction means a specific lost in the specie of that format, in this case
the tape; reflecting with that two specific ideas about technological alienation:
* the rational thinking stagnation which produces indistinguishable human beings (the digital format).
* the irrecoverable part of humanity we lost each time we bind ourselves to the technological machinery (destruction of analog format). These both factors produce one of the most dangerous actual weapons: passive misinformation through extremely massive sensorial digital stimulation… And so, we seat comfortably behind the screen of our computer or mobile device and turn ourselves
in cyberactivists “likingâ€, “sharing†and “commenting†the drug cartels massive killing in Mexico, the israelipalestinian war, the big corporations human exploitation or the civil wars in middle East. And so we turn ourselves into digital puppets hungry for judging and expressing our point of view about a world we are already completely isolated from. That is the tragedy that this piece underlines.
The primary o bjet sonore is fiery manipulated until it is completely destroyed and this whole event is digital recorded and used as raw material for composition. This raw material is processed using programming language Supercollider t hrough algorithmic parametric control based on author´s own research development on those areas.
Edmar Soria
born in 1983, he is a mexican Composer an director.
Wonderfeel (Australia) & Antonio Testa (Italy) – Goldness, 2015, 8:58
We approached the psyche-shattering experience of collective trauma. Tuning into the coldness, isolation and bewilderment that dominates people in such terrible times. Sinking, drowning, being beaten, and gradually finding solace, finding that thread of human dignity and compassion. A few golden rays warm us as survival and grief become healing.
The organo-industrial groove is created by Wonderfeel, finding music within non-musical sound. Antonio Testa richly layers the piece with sounds cultivated from stones, stalagmites and other organic sources. ‘Goldness’ is a collaboration between Wonderfeel (Australia) and Antonio Testa (Italy).
WONDERFEEL: Wonderfeel creates music to awaken the primal soul. Working with unique organic sounds, building deep immersive grooves. Delivering something to resonate with and enliven unknown parts of our being. With 26 years experience, Wonderfeel sculpts musical journeys. Journeys to take us beyond the fragmentation of modern life, into a space that is experiential and connected. Wonderfeel provides music for sacred dance, Labyrinth rituals, festivals, film, television and creative performance.
ANTONIO TESTA: Producer, composer, musician, percussionist, music tutor, and music therapist. I specialise in organic soundscapes and the creation of musical atmospheres through the use of a vast array of mostly native and shamanic instruments, together with my own instrumental creations made from organic and recycled materials.
I have been active in the field of contemporary music since early 80’s working as a percussionist specialising in tribal and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, ethno-ambient and world music. I am an artist constantly working to expand my knowledge of ethnomusicology and the curative powers of sound, my music (both performed live and recorded) is used widely for healing and various types of therapy sessions, as well as also being used for documentaries, films, exhibitions, TV ads and dance-theatre plays.
Despite being essentially an organic ethno-ambient artist I have through the course of my career, also performed regularly with artists within the contemporary, and dance music scene to create memorable synergies of organic and electronic.
Mr.Arnont Nongyao (Thailand) – SkyDrink, 2014, 20:00
What I make is DIY (Destroy It Yourself). I started out with the ‘Do It Yourself’ ethos, which encouraged me to make something, instead of buying something. Or to make something that you actually
can’t even buy or that is too expensive. When you adapt things around you and you create something yourself and it works, it is very unique.
For me that very process destroys the way we think about perfection and it also undermines the capitalist system. Hence you destroy it yourself by doing it yourself. And that is in itself an experimental process. I made and used DIY instruments that for acoustic sound vibrations for tough an audiences also some of vibrations related supernatural life an audience’s feel.
Arnont Nongyao
Arnont is interested in and does research into sound with concentration on vibration, so most of his works are differently experimental and relative to vibration in order to search for the value of
vibration derived from connected things, such as human beings, objects and society. His works are involved in a speciSic space and audience’s participation. They are also connected with the mode
of listening/hearing in a social situation, and with how people interact with and participate in sound. Some of his selected exhibitions include 16th Media Art Biennale WRO 2015: Test Exposure, Wroclaw, Poland, TRANCE at Gallery VER, Bangkok, Thailand (2014),
Ayse Kucuk (Turkey) – Cannibalism, 2013, 7:12
I heard many stories from my grandparents who lived in USSR during the Stalinist era from which they tried to escape. Some of the relatives were sent to forced labor camps in Siberia. Most of these stories were wrapped with an undefined fear and loneliness faced to which you could easily find yourself lost in silence. It is obviously true that the Stalinist era was one of the bloodiest periods and a major example of human horror in the history. Living in constant fear and routine, almost rhythmic noises associated with the daily horrors made people more perceptive to such noises and sounds, which made them further anxious and brought a closely related sense of annihilation. There was noises of marching, bombs, guns, screams, sirens and many industrial equipment that people got used to hearing throughout their daily lives. I then choose some of these memories and experiences to mix and manipulate, such that the image aspiring to emerge onto the surface is immediately forgotten. Consequently, these recordings allow me to create a space in a different time with a sound that I’ve never physically experienced before. In a sense, this gives me the opportunity to recreate an alternative past in the present in a recurrent fashion. In contrast, if I am in a different space or I look directly at (any) object, then they remind me the sound or the imagination of the sound. It is like a hallucinatory experience or what may be like the voices that the schizophrenics hear from an undefined source.
Ayse Kucuk
b.1983,Istanbul, Turkey, lives and works in London
EDUCATION: 2014 MFA Fine Art Painting ( Distinction ), Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, UK
2005 BFA Fine Art, Yeditepe University, Istanbul
François Dumeaux (France) – Ikarusu, 2011, 10:00
A piece composed to exorcise stupefaction, hebetude and morbid fascination induced by the infinite video loops broadcasted after the earthquake in Japan. A time to think about this human madness : build a huge energy and destruction power. Dedicated to nuclear victims from the past, today and the future. Composition work from 2011/03/19 to 2011/04/24. World creation for the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey (US) by 2012, march 27.
François Dumeaux (Rodez/France, 1978)
won the SACEM prize and have been graduated by the Bordeaux Conservatory in the Christian Eloy and Christophe Havel’s electroacoustic composition class. Finalist for the acousmatic composition competition Métamorphoses 2008, his piece have been released on the eponym V.A. Annette Vande Gorne invited him to compose « SRA » for the Bernard Parmegiani‘s 80th anniversary.
Since 2011 he is teaching in the Bordeaux Conservatory electroacoustic composition class. In the free improvisation and the live electronic fields, he played with Joan Francés Tisnèr, Alain Cadeillan, Jakes Aymonino, Christian Vieussens, Peìre Boissière and in a few bands : [alveol], la familha Artús, Shapeless, la Theory du Reptil, etc. He also realises radio art, documentaries, sonography for museums and soundtracks for plays, choreographies and movies.
Yuko Katori, Luigi Console, Perre-Luc Senéchal, Mark Richard Vernon, Dario Lazzaretto, Caroline de Lannoy, Stasis73, Theme Bannenberg & NOK Snel, Adrian Zalewski
Works 21-29
Yuko Katori (Japan) – Les oiseaux de Lémurie, 2014, 13:15
Luigi Console (Italy) – Resettlement, 2014, 4:53
Pierre-Luc Senécal (France) – Schrei, 2014, 9:40
Mark Richard Vernon (UK)- The Disappearing Sea, 2014, 10:00
Dario Lazzaretto (Italy) Loopersâ€, 2015, 06:12
Caroline de Lannoy (Belgium) – ‘Dark Crimson’, 2015, 04:54
Stasis73 (UK) – Threshold, 2015, 5:41
Theme Bannenberg & Nok Snel (NL) – SLOPES TO DWELL ON, 2015, 09:53
Adrian Zalewski (zheimeer) (Poland) – I will, 2015, 6:41
Yuko Katori (Japan) – Les oiseaux de Lémurie, 2014, 13:15
The birds of the lost continent is sending their poems to us in our dream. Lemuria is said to be one of the hypothetical ‘lost lands’ which sank in the sea, like Atlantis. It is often said that these ‘lost continents’ disappeared because there was a nuclear war, a natural disaster, a meteor fell etc. Or, it is also said that people in these civilisations did have a high level of technology, but the level of their spirituality did not match up with it, therefore, their own technology destroyed themselves, and so on.
Of course, there is no way to prove things like this, and all of these might be just ‘stories’ which someone created. However, we realise that these things can happen to us in this civilisation too. Even if we only look at the matter of ‘nuclear’, not only ‘nuclear war’ but also the situation of nuclear energy, we could think that the world as we know it can realistically disappear in similar ways as the lost continents. We have created nuclear energy and bombs that can destroy ourselves. Is there anything more traumatic than this?In this piece ‘Les oiseaux de Lémurie’ (The birds of Lemuria), the birds in our dream ask questions in the form of poetry. Such as; Where have you left your song? Why have you stop to dance? Why do you no longer pray? What is your highest value? What are you going to do with your energy? What are you going to do with the energy of the earth? Are you going to continue contaminating the sea? What is your real feeling towards the civilization that you live with? And what about beauty? What about philosophy???
Yoko Katori
She has been creating acousmatic pieces since 2014. Recent projects include a concert ‘Géophonies Acousmatiques’ at Atelier de l’étoile in Besançon (November 2014) with Jean Voguet and a creation of sound poetry with Sandrine Deumier for the exhibition in CRANE lab, Burgundy, France. (November 2014) She has also been selected to participate in Audioblast Festival by APO33, Nantes, France. (February 2015)
Before this, she was one of the creative teams in residence at OperaGenesis , Royal Opera House in London, UK from 2006 to 2009, where she developed two Theatre pieces. :The Lily of the Valley (libretto:R. Millner) / Sea of Souls: She was also commissioned for the Royal Ballet’s new works programme, held at the Linbury Studio Theatre, ROH (2009). Prior to this, there was a creation of an opera ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ (2002/03), as well as other smaller pieces in collaboration with the writer Robert Millner. In 2013, she was accepted to participate in a residential workshop for opera composition held by Peter Eotvos in Budapest.
Luigi Console (Italy) – Resettlement, 2014, 4:53
Today we see many trips representing collective dramas. Who escape by war or economic crises, who cross the sea to reach a place called hope, Those who can not make it in the attempt. These are some of our daily collective drama Resettlement is a drama track about a trip. The principal theme of Resettlement is the conversion in harmony interview with Waltier Stier of director
Claude Lazmann. Walter Stier, a Nazi bureaucrat, is responsible for the transport trains during the deportation, without which none of the death trains would arrive at their destination stations like Treblika, Auschwitz or Belzec. Although he has always insisted that he did not know the “Final Solution”, but is one of the main responsible for this collective drama known as the Holocaust.
Using as a working basis the audio interview with Walter Stier and through the conversion of words in harmony, i want to recreate a sound ambient, in the virtual space, of harmony obtained. Through the sound in the virtual space, i want to emphasize the drama of the trip, the departure station, the long journey, the ambient in the train, the past, and the final arrival station. Pain and suffering are lost in space, wandering in the compartments dedicated to transport stuff now destined to pain, leading the listener to experience the trip, normally an occasion for pleasure, as a distressing painful feeling. An old collective trauma but always present. All of today there are several trips that represent the collective drama, changing only the means of transport and the era in which they
Luigi Console
Class 1986 from Ostuni – South Italy – with an education self-taught, Luigi Console studied at ILAS in Naples and in the Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan like visual designer. In the years, he directs his research on the connection between visual communication techniques analog and digital in the video and audio fields. In 2012 he joined the study gloWArp, multimedia communication , with which furthered his research in new technologies applied to communication. His main activity is in the fields of new media art, audio and experimental video fields, and he is also currently teacher for workshops related to New Technologies for Arts. Love to experiment with different media and its connection, without losing the main Objectives and the needs of the project.
Pierre-Luc Senécal (France) – Schrei, 2014, 9:40
Concept
Schrei, “scream” in German, is my attempt to transfer into music the horrors of World War, a representation of the extent the Horror can take. Based on a number of historical documents as well as Jonathan Littell’s Kindly Ones, this piece places itself along the countless studies and novelists’ work which attempt to have us look closer at the reality that the executioners were alarmingly ordinary. It is meant as a dissent to the idea we might have of mankind, confronting us to its darker sides as well as the ocean of shades of grey that separates Good from Evil. In the end, it questions us on the true nature of humanity and our identity as human beings.
You will hear the voices of men and women, both victims and executioners, telling their tales as they bring you through the mass murders in the East, the propaganda campaign of the Third Reich and the gas chambers. Voices where suffering and brutal dehumanization blends with the reports of SS officers, giving in to nervous breakdowns and sadism. Voices from beyond the grave, urging us to listen and to remember, that pain is universal, a thread that connects us all as members of the human race, even when Evil is done.
The murders of this war, of any war for that matter, often committed with barbaric and senseless cruelty, remain the product of human beings. In that, we remain somewhat, human brothers.
Creation of the work and tools
Long before I started composing this piece, it had been decided voice would be a key element. Being a nearly impossible material to work without being instantly recognized, the voice would be preserved “as is”, without any treatment, and used both as a guideline to maintain the audience’s attention and as a melody, both musical and of timber.
This process was in great part respected for all the other sound materials. Using mostly the recordings of two imposing metal objets (a thunder sheet and a tam tam), those sounds were only treated with basic tools (transposition, reverb, editing, EQ) before being “written” with volume and pan curves, as if they were contrapuntal melodies in a Baroque piece.
While the piece’s structure can be heard as 4 large sections of a French Suite (Toccata, Allemande, Courante and Sarabande), this discourse also borrows from the orchestral’s, as the metallic sounds have been orchestrated like instruments supporting the choir of recorded voices. In the end, both materials somewhat sing in harmony, keeping a trace of what was to be a contrast between voice and metal, between flesh and bullets.
Constantly fueled by additional readings and overall research, this project is an ongoing one. Even though this project mostly deals with death, it also has to talk to the survivors of this war. In the end, life did go on, and hope has yet to be fully addressed in this current version of the piece, as of now only evoked in the final segment, where the evanescent voices of a choir are singing through the dying breaths of gassed victims.
Pierre-Luc Senécal
I am 12 when I tell my father I want to learn guitar. It’s the start of thousands of hours listening to Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, practicing technical death metal on guitar and whatnot.
At 19, my musical studies begin with electroacoustic music under the wing of Michel Tétreault and Pierre-Marc Beaudoin in Cégep de Saint-Laurent, Montréal
Today, I am 23 and I keep learning with great teachers and composers such as Georges Forget, Martin Bédard, Robert Normandeau and Nicolas Bernier in Université de Montréal.
To me, music is everywhere: in organized and disorganized sounds, in progressive death metal, electronica, post-rock and even in pornogrind.
I hope I’ll keep finding it in live performances, acousmatic music, music for theater, as well as in the other numerous projects I always lead.
Mark Richard Vernon (UK)- The Disappearing Sea, 2014, 10:00
This composed soundscape alludes to the events of the tragic 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that devastated the coast of many parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand killing over 230,000 people. Over 40,000 Sri Lankans died on that day. The small town of Hikkaduwa, the location of the majority of these recordings, was particularly badly hit. Many people drowned simply because they could not swim. If an early warning system had been in place it could have saved the lives of thousands.
Whilst the majority of the composition does not refer to the Tsunami explicitly (with the exception of the voice at the end) it is constructed in four phases or movements that could be interpreted as chaos, submersion, mourning and reflection.
Components of the piece include:
· A fishing boat captain trying to communicate by radio with other fishing boats in the Hikkaduwa area.
· Chanting over a PA and waves on the shore at the Seenigama temple – an island temple that miraculously was untouched by the Tsunami. Many locals believe it was spared because it is a sacred place.
· Processed sounds of crows and other birds.
· Distorted radio and PA announcements.
· Performance artist, Sita Pieraccini, singing a duet with a boat engine.
· The clatter of bobbins used in lace making recorded in Welligama, another coastal town that was badly affected.
· Kamani Di Silva describing the sound of the Tsunami and how villagers heard it differently as the sound of thunder or a bomb blast – Mrs Di Silva, herself a victim of the disaster, is the proprietress of the Telwatta Tsunami Photo Museum. The museum is housed within the ruins of her old family home. She managed to survive by running two kilometres inland. Nearby is the site where a train with over 1,000 passengers on board was swept away, the engine itself ending up 5 kilometres inland.
· Waves breaking on the shore in Hikkaduwa and the distant the hammering of boat repairs in the harbour – Almost the entire fishing fleet of the town was destroyed. In the wake of the Tsunami relief aid helped to rebuild the fleet, an essential cog in the local economy that also provides the livelihood of many of the town’s residents.
All sounds used in the creation of this piece were recorded during an artist’s residency based at Sura Medura in Hikkaduwa on the South West Coast of Sri Lanka in 2013. The residency was supported by UZ Arts and Creative Scotland.
Mark Vernon
is a sound artist and radio producer based in Glasgow. His radiophonic creations range from documentaries and radio plays to experimental audio collage and soundscape pieces. He has produced programmes and features internationally for radio stations including RADIA, Resonance FM, Wave Farm, CKUT, VPRO and the BBC and has also been directly involved in the creation of the UK art radio stations; Radiophrenia, Hairwaves, Radio Tuesday and Nowhere Island Radio.
Together with Monica Brown he runs Lights Out Listening Group, a monthly listening event focused on creative uses of sound and radio that takes place in complete darkness. He also records and performs in a number of collaborative and solo music projects with record releases on Staalplaat, Ultra Eczema, Entr’acte, Staubgold and Gagarin Records.
Dario Lazzaretto (Italy) Loopersâ€, 2015, 06:12
A sound art work inspired by the primary need for the conception of a work of art: it is mandatory to question myself about the meaning and necessity of my artistic expression. Most of the time I could say of my work that “everything makes sense, but it has no justification.” The tragedy of the Holocaust but also, more generally, every atrocity committed by humanity open wide doubts about the true nature of man. We were able to do everything and its opposite without learning from the horrors, as in a vicious circle. So I decided that this inner dispute had to be voiced in the form of dialogue, which would express the overlapping of antithetical tensions. So two imaginary interlocutors – in two different languages – chase themselves without ever reaching themselves in a round of sense-nonsense: What is the point – here, now, and especially for me – in doing an audio-work on a collective drama? While in the background, the sound of a broken violin, slowed and distorted, painful and insistent. The sound of the subtext of the history of man
Dario Lazzaretto (Padua, 1975)
work with a practice and a relational approach. He’s interested in the social, political and cultural aspects of contemporary life; his works often use the sound element as the main vehicle of meaning, while maintaining a visual component. He has participated in numerous international residency programs (Italy,Iceland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, United States). Among the venues that have proposed its work within museums and prestigious Italian and international private institutions, among which: Dortyart Museum (Dordrecht-NL); Macro (Rome), Museum Les Abbattoirs (Toulouse), Italian Institute of Culture (Barcelona), Palace of Arts (Naples); and many more.
Caroline de Lannoy (Belgium) – ‘Dark Crimson’, 2015, 04:54
The work ‘Dark Crimson’ involves structured sounds with an implicit concept of time, associated emotions, pitch, and energy. The presence of these elements is organized into units with interrelated rhythm, harmony, and melody. Variations of the same chord sequence are mixed, repeated, manipulated and superimposed. The loop circulates and re-circulates like the same adventure over and over again, but somehow different each time. By playing the same chord at different points, I emphasize different overtones and produce subtle variations of colour. The work takes a dramatic form, gradually working up to a climactic point.
Software used: Logic Studio Pro.
Caroline de Lannoy
was born in Brussels and lives and works in London. She studied at Athens School of Fine Arts, Central St Martins College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. She lectures at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
She works across painting, drawing, sound, video and composition. She has exhibited internationally including: The Collection Lincoln Museum, La Verriere, Art In General, Huddersfield Art Gallery, MASS MoCA, Tate Britain, Royal Academy, Arnolfini, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Whitworth Art Gallery, MONA Museum, Kunst Museum Hollfeld, Mamco Museum, Mondriaanhuis, Sint-Lukas Galerij, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Kettle’s Yard, South London Gallery. She has completed major commissions across UK as well as a number overseas. She has been an artist in residence at Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Cité Internationale des Arts and recently at The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. Her work is in public and private collections in the UK and abroad.
Stasis73 (UK) – Threshold, 2015, 5:41
Throughout history into the present, for reasons of war, politics or disaster, all those removed from their homes, land, work, and culture reveal a common human experience of lost homeland and community ripped apart: the experience of not knowing where ‘home’ is.
It wasn’t easy, because you leave your home,
your possessions, your memories, your youth,
you leave your dead there………
and carry their memories.
Ali Oney removed from Rethymno Crete to Ayvalik Turkey
Population Exchange 1923
Sometimes the memories are too much: words turn into empty veneers, gestures and nightmares. Sometimes they turn into silent trauma because there are simply no words to describe the suffering, which Freud defines as an indelible imprint on the mind.
Continuing a practice that has explored through live sound-art performance, film and spoken word, issues of deracination and alienation, Tim Riley and Georgia Elizey have created Threshold as a direct emotional aural experience. Utilising atonal instruments and objects chosen for their disturbing qualities, original field recordings, spoken word, whisperings and group voice, Threshold evokes a distressing and painful internalized landscape of the forced mass movement of a people. Primary instruments are the waterphone, hammers, metal sheets and wooden blocks, together with field recordings have been mixed live through electronic effects and edited in Logic.
STASIS 73 – Tim Riley & Georgia Elizey
live & work on the South Coast of England. Working mostly collaboratively for the last 15 years & exhibiting nationally & internationally, their practise involves video, sound, text & spoken word, performance & installation; together with curatorial projects, & co-ownership of an experimental art space: STONEsquid.
Theme Bannenberg & Nok Snel (NL) – SLOPES TO DWELL ON, 2015, 09:53
SLOPES TO DWELL ON is a road movie with a series of photos of landscapes. We show you a peaceful piece of northeastern France, where 100 years ago the First World War was raging. The violin parts and various guitar solos drag your light hearted and dramatically along the four seasons. The audio is taken with a digital piano and a regular music program.
Dutch artist duo Theme Bannenberg (1953) and Nok Snel (1961)
are adventurers down to the bone. Where ever they roam the direct environment is the set for inspiration. The concept of T&NOK is opposite en spitting images. Confrontation is their drive. They produce sensible and nonsensical work. The result is photography, objects, words, installations, paintings and since 2008, also videos.
Adrian Zalewski (zheimeer) (Poland) – I will, 2015, 6:41
Collective trauma can have many faces. In my sound work I attempt to depict its casual dimension- mundane, everyday trauma that can appear at any moment of our lives, without śbig reasons, such as wars or natural disasters. This is existential trauma that is inherent and immanent part of our daily experience. As the basis for my work serves pop song by Whitney Huston, which deepens the sense of grotesque that is often associated with the notion of trauma. The work has been created by means of synthesizer and sampler. Samples used in the work are the sounds of my voice, electronically processed.
zheimeer is the solo project of Adrian Zalewski; he says: I’m not a musician, I’m just a sound maker, I don’t consider myself to be experimental artist, I am inspired by atonal music as well as disco, I don’t want to perceive music according to rules or stereotypes that are imposed on us by clever critics.” In his works zheimeer uses mainly the synthesizer, sampler and sequencer. As for the music, it could be described by
contradictions: whimsical, schizophrenic, stuttering vs. continuous, drone, ambient…zheimeer comes from ToruÅ„ in Poland. zheimeer took part in 2010 edition of Atomino, an international art festival in Crimmitschau, Germany as well as in many projects curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne.
SIP – Soundlab Interview project – selected interviews 01
