WORKS
© Lucia Coszach
© David Visnjic
Slow Light - Acoustic Reflections of Darkness
Mittelhoch gestrichene Kontrabass-Welten
der Klang der Dämmerung
die Dunkelheit vor dem ersten Glimmer des Sonnenuntergangs
und die Dunkelheit, die sich schleichend behauptet, nachdem die Sonne ihre letzten Lichtpartikel gleißend in die andere Hemisphäre mitgenommen hat
eine Erinnerung an Licht
eine Immersion in der Finsternis
Im Klang können Dusk und Dawn verschmelzen
genauso wie die Jahreszeiten
und die Orte des Hörens
Vögel, Frösche, Wiedehopf und Schwarzspecht treffen auf Stimmen und Instrumente
aus einer fortwährenden Kontinuität an Wahrnehmung
Middle high bowed double bass worlds
the sound of twilight
the darkness before the first glimmer of sunset
and the darkness that creepingly asserts itself after the sun
has taken its last light particles glistening into the other hemisphere
a memory of light
an immersion in darkness
In sound, dusk and dawn merge, melt into one another
as do the seasons
and places we listened
Birds, frogs, hoopoes and woodpeckers collide with voices and instruments
from a perpetual flow of perception
ZM 2022
Reflections of Empty Spaces - Jaka Berger & Zahra Mani
Abandoned spaces are a big part of modern society. Urban spaces once full of life are being left behind for the nature to take back what was taken from green and was transformed into concrete. Like in case of physical spaces also in music and sound creation, artist produces lots of sound material that is being discarded in the process. To relate and connect with abandoned industrial space the duo will implement raw drums, objects and bass guitar with electronic sounds of modular synthesis and field recordings. With merging the two worlds of active and discarded, the composition will come to resonance within the walls of empty habitat. With using the building itself as a resonator, the dialog between artists and space will be established as a reminder and reflection on new potentials within abandoned spaces. JB
RIFLESSI SCURI - in the spirit of shadows
Zahra Mani opened Topographies of Sound 2021 at Skuc Gallery in Ljuljana with her new programme “Riflessi Scuri - in the spirit of shadows”. The pieces build upon field recordings from diverse landscapes from northern Finland to the south Styrian hills in Austria, from Topolò on the Italian-Slovenian border to the woods and rocky Adriatic shores of Istria. Layers of everyday sound combine with instrumental samples recorded by the artist and her live processed bass guitar, where sonic ontologies merge and dissipate in abstract rhythms and melodies defying definition. The performance is enhanced through visuals by Gavino Canu and Elise Passavant, transposing landscapes into an audio-visual process that transforms the performance space.
TOPOLÒ - la memoria del spazio e dello suono
Il mio pezzo per Topolò è cresciuto, gradualmente, espandendo radici acustiche immaginarie, come le reti fungose sotto il terriccio di una foresta, da quando abbiamo visitato Topolò nel febbraio 2020. Questo è stato il nostro ultimo viaggio pre-Covid19, attraversando un paesaggio che, fino a quel momento, abbiamo sempre dato per scontato. Circolando la rotta Alpe-Adriatica attraverso l’Austria, I’Italia, la Slovenia e le regioni nord-occidentali della Croazia durante gli ultimi 20 anni senza considerare confini o restrizioni, il lockdown ci ha ricordato della sudata pace che l’Europa dovrebbe proteggere; del duraturo significato delle tracce delle terribili battaglie sulle colline tra Italia e Slovenia, le quali vengono gradualmente consumate dalla natura ma che non dovrebbero mai essere tenute nascoste, o almeno non fino a quando gli esseri umani esistono e sono in grado di dimenticare. Ma questo pezzo per la Stazione di Topolò, la memoria di suono e spazio, è più astratto e allo stesso tempo più dettagliato, zoomato sulle registrazioni dei microcosmi di parole udibili delle foreste e dei prati alpini, ruscelli e rivoli, venti e piante ed animali. Rifletterò elementi di queste registrazioni nella risonanza del mio basso, traducendo animi e frequenze o semplicemente interagendo con o reagendo al suono trovato in una performance live, oppure attraverso un’installazione sonora. Qualsiasi cosa succeda, la performance e l’atmosfera acustica si comporranno a vicenda, il momento di ascolto condiviso si creerà seduta stante, in un paese che si presta all’ascolto, il tempo viene sospeso in uno spazio limitato.
LIMINAL
was performed for the first time at Café Korb in Vienna during Wien Modern 2018. Focussing on the aesthetics of insecurity, I used field recordings I made in the “art lounge” basement, where the premiere took place, as the basis for an acoustic dialogue between.My combination of found and instrumental sound draws attention to a fundamental democracy and egalitarianism in my approach to acoustic material. The treatment of sound is political, and no sound is ever isolated or individual. Every acoustic moment is a complex conglomeration of sound waves, and every new noise changes the entire soundscape, and is changed by the other components of the soundscape.
Using the bass guitar together with field recordings, LIMINAL created reflexions; the “heard” sounds of the space (in the field recordings and in the extended moment of the performance) was reflected in the sound of my bass guitar, creating a dialogue between the passively heard and the actively, intentionally created acoustic moment.
Sound is memory and association; noises are ethically neutral and always subject to individual perception and interpretation. In the aesthetics of insecurity, the notions of sound-as-music or noise-as-disturbance meet in the liminal space of the piece.
INVISIBLE VALLEY (Echoes from invisible landscapes)
The lack of article in the title points in a roundabout way to the specificity of the region and the ubiquitous phenomena of loss, change and layers of history. It is not “a” or “the” valley - it is a landscape, which carries in it traces of history, of industry, of populations ranging through time from the Noric swordmakers of the Roman empire to the pit workers and the Tibetan monks.
The field recordings that form the basis of the piece include the wind that blows through the abandoned Heft, the rippling flow of the Görtschitz at various points along its journey, sounds released through interaction with forgotten iron objects scattered throughout the landscape and the growling hum of the Wietersdorfer cement factory.
The noises are transformed by means of looping and electronic effects into musical sounds that are circumscribed by melodic and rhytmic patterns on the bass guitar, forming further sonic layers that reflect the historical layers.
The river Görtschitz flows without pause in its unregulated form through the rhythms and the resounding silence that define the landscape.
PHONOPHANTOM
Zahra Mani hat im Rahmen des diesjhrigen Phonofemme Festivals im Wiener Konzerthaus ihr neues intermediales Solowerk “Phonophantom” zum ersten Mal präsentiert. Das Stück besteht aus Feldaufnahmen, Instrumental- und Naturklngen sowie Bassgitarre und live Elektronik. Es handelt von entkörperten Geräuschen und Stimmen und transformiert den Aufführungsraum mit subtilen, explodierenden Klanglandschaften, die von Elise Passavants speziell für das Stück entwickelten Visuals unterstrichen werden. Aus gegebenen Umstnden thematisiert das Werk Exil und “ausgesetzt sein” in einer künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung mit Migrantentum, Flucht, Angst und Entwurzelung. Verfremdete Exzerpte von Pasolini, Bachmann und Rilke flackern immer wieder auf, Sprache, Bild und Klang werden zu einem hypnotischen, treibenden Fluss von sensorischen Ausdrucksweisen.
With thanks to la voce g-p!
TUULESSA (IN THE WIND)
the sounds of the tundra, of an ancient landscape further north
the echoes of the sami who never arrived but follow the reindeer in the wind
the wind that blows the fog across the lake and up the mountain
in tiny pores of wet
the wind that booms and hisses and dances
teases and flirts and goes too far
and never quite stops
the wind that hijacks microphones and takes them forever captive
that challenges the lows and the highs
and permeates where not ears but membranes go
the reindeer wind that leads the herd and their followers and their followers
the tourists, the artists, the scientists, the wanderers
in their trail
the listeners who borrow the wind or steal it
translate and carry across into another sound another scape another field
SUONOMBRA
is about shadows and resonances of sound and image, phantoms that need a concrete counterpart to exist - the echoes and shades of sonic and visual objects in an intermedial continuum.
2.3.12 in Gijon @ Trendelenburg_Intermedial duo with Mia Makela
30.10.11 in Vienna Phonofemme @ Brunnenpassage_Intermedial trio with Mia Makela and Rie Nakajima
Various solo performances
PLACES, TRACES ODER ORTLOSE ORTE, SPURLOSE SPUREN
Places, Traces is a stereo radio art piece for orf kunstradio.
The piece is a personal journey through Pakistan, the UK, Austria and Croatia, using instruments and field recordings to explore identity and foreignness, alienation and transitional arrival in the unique intimacy of radio space.
FLOATING INSTALLATION
A four-channel piece composed for floating objects designed and constructed by Hubert and Damara Marko of Blumen Moser in Villach.
Presented at the opening of the Cyber Dinner at Monte Mulini Hotel, Rovinj, conclusion of the two-year EU network project Phonart - The Lost Languages of Europe.
