The Engine Room and IKLECTIK present,
THE ENGINE ROOM: FINALISTS LIVE PERFORMANCES II
Wednesday 16 October | 8pm – 9pm | Free Entry
On Wednesday 9 and Wednesday 16 October, the finalists of The Engine Room competition/exhibition will perform live their pieces in a multi-channel surround audio diffusion and video projection.
Wednesday 16 programme:
Into thin Air, Roberto P.Siguera
“Into Thin Air” is a 16-min Audio installation explores reiterative sonic practices with a particular emphasis on the physicality of sound from the very lowest registers of the frequency spectrum.
The sound artist forces himself with a real severe and uncompromising guideline using a sculptural approach, a reduced sonic vocabulary and use of raw pitch-black darkness in order to achieve a balance between the abstract, hypnotic, intimate, imagined and real world.
A pure immersion into the cloudiness feeling of sound, unadorned bass frequencies exploring the presence of tangible air movements.
BIID Elisea, Njordzitrone [Electronic Duo}
BIID Elisea depicts / explores the coexistence of heterogenous information in a shared space, which turns into a saturated and uneven stream of unrelated slivers.
The presence of the human voice is seen as just another minute “instance”, a possibile reality among the other sound languages that search for shapes of protagonism.
is this okay, for lovers, Claire Rousay
“is this okay for lovers” is a work about digital intimacy and navigating the physical and digital world as an individual who views themselves as physically/sexually/etc “undesirable”. This composition is made up of two main sections where the same information is conveyed using different means of communication. The first section focuses on hyper physical sounds made with amplified objects. This sound making method could represent physical human-to-human interactions outside of complex technologies. The second section of this composition focuses mainly on electronics and their ability to translate information between two or more parties. The same information is being communicated in each section but the results differ sonically, in length, and possibly in interpretation.
Murmur, Stijn Demeulenaere & Jan Locus (2nd prize)
Brussels was built on a swamp: it grew out of the village of Broekzele, in a bend of the river Zenne. Today there’s only one tiny part that is still officially a swamp. Although continually threatened by development the area stayed intact largely due to being ensnared between two railroad tracks. Just beyond the tracks you find high-rise social housing, an industrial area, and just a tad further, the ring road highway that surrounds Brussels. A bit of a forgotten spot in the middle of a city, it’s a home to a lot of smaller wildlife.
MURMUR is a collaboration between a filmmaker and a sound artist. On 2 occasions, just before first light, they went to the swamp and recorded the dawn chorus. The city drone permeates the sound of the swamp, and a strange mix enfolds between the sound of an awakening nature and a human presence, giving the place a very otherworldly twilight atmosphere. MURMUR is a study in sound and image of this place during this blue hour of the morning light.
Like Water Which Nurtures All Things Without Trying To, Zach Sch
Inspired by our collective’s surroundings, Taoist imagery depicting the beginning of nothingness and everything, as well as in collaboration with the estate of a deceased Korean Pansori singer, this piece (conceptually part of a spatially oriented installation) seeks to construct the sound of falling into a whirlpool of oblivion. Contextually the exact verse of inspiration is: “Yet mystery and reality emerge from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness born from darkness. The beginning of all understanding.” However in order to convey the exact nature and aberrancy of the situation, sounds both primal and otherworldly were chosen to bombard and recede as rapidly as they appear looping around and at times disappearing never to be heard again. Wails of instruments and splintering boulders shower down to be resolved by clamoring gong and inarticulate voice. Made using self programmed software and instruments we made ourselves. Please listen with headphones if possible.
