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Sirens, Wind and Schwitters - in collaboration with female strangers and 3 children by Antye Greie Score: I was invited to Fon Festival and spent a week with the Octopus Collective in Cumbria, Barrow the Furness in UK alongside with Philip Jeck, Tetsuo Kowaga, Lee Gamble, Ryoko Akama and others. My idea was to work with strangers on voice-only-pieces. Octopus found 3 women who were up for it and luckily for me had previous experience in using their voices. Our main goal was to immitate wind, sirens, recite Kurt Schwitters "Simultangedicht" and an AGF remix of the same and built a drone on A. We rehearsed and performed the pieces on Piel Island and in the packed St John’s Church, Island Road, Barrow Island on Saturday 6th of August.
Immitating wind in windy situations turns out to be a delicate undertaking, one can only loose to the real wind, but it is a good training and listening expierence. This recording was made in the first rehearsal in Laternhouse in Ulverston, where I opened the week of experiments. The image is us wind-ing on Piel Island a few days later. mp3: Wind By 6 Females Crazy ferry ride to Piel Island , the smallest island with a castle, the water was astonishing blue, salty and clear.
The castle ruin gave us shelter from to stark wind, here we performed first time the 3 way split poem by the famed Kurt Schwitters. Schwitters is relevant to me, because he is a poemproducer, dada-ist, a German (in exile) and a huge influence in this field. He is relevant to the UK region because he had lived and even died in the area during his exil in 1941.
mp3: Kurt Schwitters "Simultantgedicht" mp3: Kurt Schwitters "Simultantgedicht" (AGF poem remix)
mp3: 5 Voices on A
Having worked with radios in nature and radio transmitters before at Fon Festival 2010, we used the same idea here. We were voicing on the letter A (german pronounciation). I recorded with a Tascam DR-1 to my computer and real time processed it in a max /msp patch and broadcastes via FM transmitter back to the 9 radios which again were audible by the performers and built the sound to A furthermore, this was recorded by a Zoom recorder, it reminds me of Enya, funnily, listen below. mp3: A (group yoik via max/msp treat + up to 9 radio loop) Leaving Piel Island behind was a little sad, we had so little time, I did not meet the king and but it is likely I will return with a bigger group of strangers to perform agan: Inselsehnsucht
In the residency building Piel House View I worked with the kids around there, we tried and recorded many of our common ideas for sound scapes with voice only. It turned out that the kids were better in performing sirens than the adult group I was working with, so I asked them to perform with me on the Saturday, we rehearsed until all were confident and it was a strong piece.
mp3: Sirens (AGF and 3 children) Tremendous thanks to Octopus for inviting me and allowing me to play and experiment, thanks to Glenn for his powerful support, Fern for honest chats and crazy country car rides, thanks to William (10), Alys (8) and Lumi (5) for the brave performance, thanks to the beautiful and amazing sounding women Laura, Jo, Kirsten and Fern to join my working group, thanks to Tetsuo for conversations and helping me solder my own a radio transmitter, thanks to Philip for inspiring Gaga / Beyonce talks and thanks to all artists for their wonderful performances. I felt a strong portion of reasonable love vibrating that days within all spaces and people! And if that sounds cheesy, I don't care. It is need it. |
