Sunday 6 August 2023, 1–4pm, Off-site
Rhythm Studies is a series of sound and listening walks and activities that explore cosmic rhythms, cycles and spectra through vibrational signifiers, encouraging individual and communal sensings of, and attunements with, manifold worlds.
After a sound and listening walk within Epping Forest, designed to attune attendees to the cadences of the forest, we will spend time sitting, listening and creating musical instruments that mimic, reference, enhance or take influence from the sounds around us.
From instruments of pitch and tone, to other gauges of time, space and mood, participants will explore the musicality of plant matter, stones and found ceramics, whilst inspired by the weather, birds and insects, living and singing nearby.
We recommend you wear a sturdy pair of shoes and clothing relevant to the weather/environment, and bring drinking water and snacks. You may also wish to bring gloves and/or hand sanitiser as we will be handling a variety of forest materials. Items such as leaves, twigs, cones, seeds, stones, old bottles and clay sherds will be gleaned from the forest floor, whilst other materials such as twine, stalks, (nut) shells, stones and bark will be brought to the site for shared use. NB, Cafes and facilities are available by the station..
Attendees will be emailed before the event with maps, FAQs and an exact location for meeting up.
Music and Other Living Creatures is a series at Cafe OTO (curated by OTO Projects) dedicated to music about, with, or by other living creatures. Birds, tigers, chickens, insects and many other living creatures are explored through sound-walks, listening sessions, commissioned performances, live responses and discussions.
EnCOUnTERs is a series of inter-disciplinary events that reside at the intersection between inter- and intra-species encounter and the sonic imagination. Events direct attention to curiosity, the speculative as well as the scientific, and to notions of multiplicity of being, experience and philosophy surveying creative and research-based practices that reference aspects of ecology, ethology and other creature-ologies, bioart and bioacoustics, sound/scape studies, zoömusicology, ethnobotany, critical plant studies, and related fields.
EnCOUnTERs is curated by Helen Frosi (SoundFjord).
Helen Frosi is a holobiont whose art practice pivots around ecological thought, poetics, and the environmental, creative, social, and political enmeshment of sound, hearing and listening. Her practice embodies epistemic pluralism, is facilitatory, and necessitates collaborative, cross-disciplinary work, communal projects and collective activities.
Helen is co-ordinator and co-curator of auralpluralities, a project that troubles accepted norms in audio technology, sound culture and Western epistemologies, questioning the extent of human perception, our relation in and through the vibratory world, and whether hearing is ever an individual act, and is curator of EnCOUnTERs, an interdisciplinary project that encompasses art, ecology and the sonic imagination.
Other long-term projects include: SoundFjord, a nomadic curatorial platform focused on sound-related research and practice (2010-present); Visible Near Midnight Recordings, for works that fall between the genre gaps (2012-present); Longplayer Day (2017-22). She is a workshop facilitator at the British Library, and Honorary Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London (Dept of Music).
Stephan Barrett is a London-based pianist, field recordist, improviser and sound editor. Stephan performs as a duo with Helen Frosi under the moniker Postcards from the Volcano, and with Adam Kinsey as Littoral Transmissions. Both projects focus on the creation of site-sensitive works, the former working with materials gleaned walking London’s peri-urban landscapes, whilst the latter explores the sonic resonance of objects and the aquatic imaginary.
As an improviser, Stephan has performed at Arch 1, A.P.T, Iklectik, Full of Noises Festival, Harts Lane Gallery, Hundred Years Gallery, and New River Studios amongst other locations, and has created transmission works for amongst others: Radiophrenia, SonicaFM, Threads and Wandsworth radio. He has released albums with Colliding Lines, International Ephemera, Minimal Resource Manipulation, Steep Gloss, Visible Near Midnight Recordings, and currently produces Lee Navigations, a monthly radio show for Resonance Extra.
https://extra.resonance.fm/series/lea-navigations
