Play are ongoing projects about exploring Earth’s web of life. Found Compositions imagines new ways of listening to sounds in the here and now, forms of attention that require an ear for creation.

The planet I call home is undergoing profound transformations within my lifetime—its biosphere is in decline, and ecosystems are shifting at an unprecedented rate. Humanity bears responsibility for these changes.

Through my Ecological Sound Art projects, I seek to provoke reflection, and to inspire action—reminding us that every sound, every ripple, and every interaction is part of a greater whole.

 

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Plays in Sponge in Space began with a visit of the exhibition of artist Aïda Kazarian at Kamer Negen – K9 in Rixensart, an exhibition space runned by Baudouin Oosterlynck. Aïda was there and she was so kind to show me her work, explaining her process of how her work is created.

And as I look at her work, I see movement in the white lines, prints, in repetition, but each time slightly different. She usually creates her work directly with all the dynamics of her being, her body: with her fingers, without a brush, but also with sponges, from the sea.

 

I tell her, “Your paintings are like scores for me.” And in that moment, (one of those wonderful moments when ideas arise by coincidences), I spontaneously told her the idea that what if I could play with her sponges, with my violin, and her work as a score ; after all, sound can be formed from anything. Aïda thought that was such a beautiful idea and immediately gave me some of her precious sponges. And I didn’t know that sponges could be so different, texture, size, soft ribbed, tangled stringy, round or more of an ellipse. And one still had some green dried paint on it….

 

Two years passed. The idea remained, and every now and then I tried how the sponges sounded on my violin, should I use them correctly as my bow? Or just put them between my strings? One made my violin a percussion instrument and the other a kind of damper or sound modifier. And then, finally, the time was right (and so were we;-).

 

I arrive at her studio, a large white high enclosed space and soft light pouring in through the slanted skylights. We can hear the rain on the roof. Against the walls her paintings, stacked or hung, silent. On a small wooden floor we clear space and lay down the sponges, my instruments for our experiment for the next hour.

 

A free improvisation with sponge and violin

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I had an idea of the sounds I could make, but how I would respond to the paintings, to the space, to the energy of it all – I had no idea.

 

Soft, strange, unexpected, strumming, hoarserrr, grgrkrrrrrrrrrr, schjrzzzzzzzzikuhkuhkuh … but also sometimes very lilting, especially that little sponge with the green; you put it under the strings, against the bridge and as you bow and put your fingers on the strings on the black wood, those overtones come naturally there. I create an invisible thread between my music and Aida’s work. The textures of the sponge on the canvas and on the violin.

I am deeply moved by that afternoon and Aïda’s confidence in this experiment.

 

This project will continue to evolve. The sponge was only the first step. Now I dream of exploring other natural tools and discovering new ways to make them sing. There is more music out there, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me.

 

Stephan Balleux was there, generously capturing every moment, filming and documenting the afternoon. I myself have been recording.

 

My next wish is to use this improvisational project as a way to touch on our environmental awareness. For example, the sponge here represents the fragility and importance of marine biodiversity. Sponges are vital to the health of marine ecosystems and their survival is strongly linked to our environmental choices.

 

And thereby helping to create an ecological awareness for repositioning our species within nature‘ (Monacchi 2011:247-8)

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Goats and humans have a long productive and imaginary history together. When I was walking in the hills of Kefalonia(Gr), I observed their various poo-compositions on the road. They decorated the road, all the way up to the Mountain Evmorfia. Amalthea is often depicted as the goat that raised the young supreme god Zeus in Crete. In one of the Indian stories it is said that the prince of Hoekoe had a goat whose faeces were gold. And in China five Gods rode five different color goats bringing grains, wind and rain to the starving people.

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Goat’s disorganised compositions of feces on the road are somehow fascinating and inspired me to copy their score on a piece of paper to be used for a music-box.

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The etching of acoustic traces onto the surface of the ceramic echoes the very earliest uses of the material as a simple writing or drawing surface, but I also explore other aspects of the relationship between ceramics and sound. The bone china has a really nice, crisp, ‘kkgghhh’. And you don’t really hear what I’m saying when I’m talking [in the recording], but sometimes you have a sense of, “ssshhh”, “aaaah”, “hheee”.

I used the principles of Helmholtz resonance to produce beautiful ceramic objects that are able to transform the sounds we hear around us.

The porcelain records and ceramophonic resonators demonstrate how the physical properties of different materials can be used to produce and manipulate sounds.

Before physics was introduced, the winds had the shapes of animals or humans. In the Middle Ages tricky winds were considered the domain of witches and wizards. In the creation myths of the southwest of the United States the first man was weak and lifeless, till the wind filled the body, gave it breath and thought and the ability to stand straight. And according to the Navajo Indians, it is also the wind that learned humans to speak. This is my first kitetrip.

Part 1. Kite trip in Venice (Italy) with the kite designed by visual artist Stephan Balleux, kite’s sound recorded by artist Frouke Wiarda and song performed by with Meri Nikula.
Part 2. Kite trip in Amsterdam, IJburg (The Netherlands) with the kite designed by visual artist Arnaud Gerniers, kite’s sound recorded by artist Frouke Wiarda, music by Wouter Snoei.

8 concrete mixers, 8 players, 8 scores, 8 poles, grit, sand, water, glass, PVC, steel and wood. The performers have one thing in common: they never performed before, don’t play any instrument and they never played the concrete mixer.