SOUNDTRAP III: GLISSOLALIA

27 June – 20 July (Friday – Sunday, 12 – 6pm) Sound installation
27 June 6 – 9pm Preview & live performance with special guests Aleks Kolkowski, Lydia Kavina and a female Barbershop Quartet, Hunky Dory.

Aura Satz explores ghostly presence and illusions through performance and sound, often focussed on unusual sonic devices, early musical instruments and automata. This new commission explores acoustic illusions and plays on the vocal quality of non-human instruments. It merges the musical concept of ‘glissando’ (the gliding or sliding from one note to another), and the idea of ‘glossolalia’ (religious speaking in tongues, or fluent unintelligible utterances).

The commission took form through a research and development period within the upper space of Beaconsfield Gallery, in response to the haunting resonance of the space. Over a six-week period of recording sessions and site-specific sound-editing, Aura invited various musicians to respond in the manner of Chinese whispers to an initial composition based on the acoustic illusion of the Shepard scale, consisting of endlessly escalating or descending compositions. Developed in dialogue with musician Aleks Kolkowski, the score’s starting point is a series of vintage test-tone recordings, which are then layered with the various components: a musical saw (Aleks Kolkowski), a theremin (Lydia Kavina) and a female Barbershop Quartet (Hunky Dory). By drawing on such a range of sound sources, references to classic perceptual illusions degenerate into a more compositional image, from swirling rising tones to coiling disembodied voices and patterned harmonies.

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Artsadmin bursary artist showing in London:
Beaconsfield Commission 2008

Related events: 8-30 July 2008: Aura Satz’s film, photography and drawing project Automamusic will be shown at Artprojx Space, 53 Beauchamp Place, London SW3 1NY, Tel: 020 7584 0717 or info@artprojxspace.com, www.artprojxspace.com