Sound Archive – Page 3 – Project DIVFUSE

International Waters Vol. 1 : Michael Lightborne [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

25 November 2022 Friday 5-8pm

26 & 27 November Saturday & Sunday 2:30 – 6:30pm.

Running time : 25 minutes. Free Entry

This is one of the three exhibitions of work and artists selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 4 – an Open Call for pieces that are based on field recordings. We are pleased that this round of the Open Call is funded by the Arts Council England and the work was jointly selected by Project DIVFUSE and sound artist Kate Carr.

International Waters (2022) is an ongoing project that explores the porous exchanges and complex entanglements of water, culture and economy around the world.

Part 1: Late Night, Cais do Sodré, Lisbon, Portugal. Containing both the Railway Station and the docks, this area was a notorious vice district. In the course of the last two decades it has been rapidly regenerated. People do not sleep here, and the sounds of music are carried on the wind out over the harbour, mingling with the crashing of waves and the wailing and grinding of metal in the docks.

Part 2: Early morning, La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Matanza-Riachuelo river is one of the 30 most polluted places in the world. Factories, tanneries and slaughterhouses pump industrial waste into its waters for miles before it reaches the mouth, La Boca. There are two ways for pedestrians to cross: the footbridge on the highway or the tiny row-boat ferry beneath it. The footbridge is free, while the ferry costs 1.5 pesos. Most people choose the row-boat, bringing them within inches of the contaminated water, free to trail their hands in it, and listen to the gentle lapping of water against the boat mixing with the sounds of heavy industry and transport.

Hidden Reverb : Maciej Wirmański [PAST]

Sound Exhibition :

2 December 2022 Friday 5-8pm

3 & 4 December Saturday & Sunday 2:30-6:30pm. Artist will be dialling in from Poland for an artist’s chat between 5pm and 6pm on Sunday.

Running time : 30 minutes. Free Entry

A Hole in a Wall (2021)

‘When I was at the Sanatorium of Sound Festival in Sokołowsko I hiked a lot. During one of my trips I found the ruins of some old buildings. Ruins were based on a slope of a hill in between meadow and woods. When I came closer I saw black eye of a rusty pipe looking back at me. It went from the outside to the inside of ruins. I put my ear to the dry pipe and I heard a rumble so different from the calm soundscape of the spa. It was so loud but almost unnoticeable even from a short distance. It amazed me so I put a shotgun microphone into the pipe and a pair of omni mics I left outside.’

Early Electro-acoustic music in the empty ballroom (2021)

‘Not so long ago I used to work for the local theatre company. The company owned an old hotel which they meant to renovate for a new stage. Empty space of a ballroom in the hotel was central to the building. Before renovation started I decided to honour the space and its unique reverbnation which was going to be lost soon. I went there at night with my microphones. The night was silent. I’ve decided to provoke reverbnation by using found objects such as broken tiles, scrap and rubble. I moved it on the concrete floor of the room. I recorded all of it on a broken tape recorder and then played it once again into the same space (inspired by “I am sitting in the room” by A. Lucier) and simultaneously playing on rubble once again. The outcome is a microphone performance/field recordings and homage to place which is gone by now.’ – Maciej Wirmański

DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 5 : Open Call

This Open Call has now closed. Results will be announced by mid January 2025. Thank you for all the artists who made a submission.

***Open Call*** for sound work that is based on field recordings. Deadline for Open Call No. 5 is 22nd December 2024

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THE SUBMISSION:

1) Text on the each piece (300 words maximum). This shall include the name, year and duration of the work, together with brief descriptions on ways of presentation (for example, 2 channels audio through speakers/headphones etc)

2) Artists’ bio (200 words maximum)

3) A link to the work. It could be a link to Soundcloud for example but please do not send us the file to download.

4) Send the submission through by email to divfuse@gmail.com on or before 22nd December 2024.

OTHER CONDITIONS:

1) Up to two pieces of work can be submitted by each artist (or group of artists who work together).

2) Each piece shall be at least 20 minutes long and can be made up of different parts.

3) Examples of work include pure sound from field recordings and compositions based on the recorded materials. Visuals and other elements such as live performances may be included if they are part of the work.

4) Selected pieces will EACH be exhibited for a weekend (Friday to Sunday) for free in late January/February 2025 at Project DIVFUSE micro digital and multi-media art gallery, London. There is no payment to the artists but we will offer the following:

* micro gallery space (5m x 3m) to carry out the exhibition.

* basic equipments for use during the exhibitions inside the gallery, including 4 x small Genelec speakers on stands, a Genelec subwoofer, a projector and a laptop to play the file(s) from.

* management of the exhibition including invigilating the space and promotion on social media.

The River in You : Joanna Penso [Upcoming]

Installations + Performance :

Session One : 21 March 2025 Friday 7pm

Session Two : 22 March Saturday 3:30pm

Session Three : 22 March Saturday 6pm

Session Four : 23 March Sunday 3:30pm

Session Five : 23 March Sunday 6pm

£5 | 6 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets.

Running time : 20 minutes visual and audio installations + 20 minutes performance

The River in You / Runs Right Through / BODY TALKS (2023-2024) by Joanna Penso (UK) were selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 5 Open Call for work that is based on field recordings.

Projection Diptych, 2023 & 2024, 2 channel audio through speakers, projection Runs Right Through 2024 explores the possibilities of listening to nature through the body. Along the banks of the River Don, Sheffield, this piece was made using field recordings taken with a hydrophone dipped into the water, and a stethoscope microphone which captures vibrations of the water seeping into the body, being heard amongst the breath, the heartbeat and digestion.

A meandering sonic journey through the waterways of the body, The River in You 2023 explores the human relationship with water in both the internal and the external. Careering through orifices, tubes and organs this ambient soundscape celebrates the journey water takes into and out of the body, transforming audio recordings taken with a stethoscope microphone into a meditative experience for the listener/viewer.

BODY TALKS 2024 is a live performance piece born out of a period of experimentation during a programme of activity funded by Arts Council England (Develop Your Creative Practice fund, DYCP). Through live amplification of the body this work looks to explore the inner and outer self in relation to performer and audience. Several microphones are strapped to the performer’s body, twisted into a central ‘umbilical cord’ which denotes the limitations of the performance area. Playing with microphone feedback moves the performer to explore the limits of what she can physically and sonically withstand whilst shadow play distorts her physical presence to the audience.

Non Mountain : Angus Carlyle, Chrystal Cherniwchan & Craig Tattersall [Upcoming]

Exhibition :

14 February 2025 Friday 5-7:30pm

15 February Saturday 2:30-6:30pm

16 February Sunday 2:30-6:30pm

Suggested donations £2. No booking required.

Non Mountain is a collaboration between Angus Carlyle, Chrystal Cherniwchan and Craig Tattersall (UK). It was selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No.5 Open Call for work that is based on field recordings.

Initially this project started as a response by Chrystal Cherniwchan and Craig Tattersall to a soundtrack and text by Angus Carlyle, from his collaboration with Chiara Caterina, in which they referenced a passage from the novel Mount Analogue by René Daumal:

For a mountain to play the role of Mount Analogue, I concluded, its summit must be inaccessible but its base accessible to human beings as nature has made them. It must be unique and it must exist geographically. The door to the invisible must be visible. (Daumal, 1952)

Through Daumal’s writing and recontextualising on previous work that Carlyle created, a mapping started to unfold, built around layers of interpretation, iteration, and construction. Cherniwchan and Tattersall created a sound piece and made preparatory photographs, that were used as cues to elicit further responses from Carlyle, which involved texts inspired by catalysed memories of the original fieldwork, photographic documentation of forgotten ephemera only re-discovered after Cherniwchan and Tattersall’s prompts and a new composition in the spirit of conversational reply.

In the publication Writer Conversations, comprising of interviews with authors about the practice of writing on photography, Duncan Wooldridge writes:

…the affective act of writing with, the process of writing around the photographic image proposes a diagrammatical model, a mapping of how an image moves and makes forms of contact and interconnection. Understanding emerges from a kind of encircling – values and meanings are drawn from how the image intersects with language and other images. (Wooldridge, 2023)

Bayt Yakan : Luca Nasciuti [Upcoming]

Sound Exhibition :

8 February 2025 Saturday 2:30-5:30pm

9 February Sunday 2:30-5:30pm

Running time : 40 minutes. Suggested donations : £2. No booking required.

Performance :

Session One : 8 February Saturday 6pm

Session Two : 9 February Sunday 6pm

£7 | 8 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

Bayt Yakan of Luca Nasciuti (UK) was selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 5 Open Call for work that is based on field recordings.

Bayt Yakan 2024 is a collection of field recordings that mark and map the essence of a newly restored historic house in Cairo, Egypt. It features 5 edited recordings of playback sound performance-walks recorded within the walls of Bayt Yakan, revealing the relationship between sound, environment, and heritage. By activating the surroundings, Luca maps the building and courtyard, creating an auditory experience that reflects the character of this location.

During the performance at the house, pre-recorded material was played back through a portable loudspeaker, allowing Luca to interact with the building and the objects within it. This interaction highlights the importance of space in shaping sound and music. The recordings weave together the indoor and outdoor sonic environment with Luca’s slow journey within the building, inviting listeners to engage with the layers of sound that define the historic site.

Bayt Yakan serves as a reminder of the interaction between history, memory and embodied experience that shape our environment. By mapping the space through field recordings and layering recorded soundscapes in the same location, the project highlights the complexity of urban regeneration and cultural conservation. What is to be saved and who holds the power over these sites becomes the guiding principle for this auditory investigation of space.