Sounds Like
Projects
Behind the Veil - Live Performance
A night where progressive soundscapes and performance entwined into ethereal realms.
This was a concept/come ritual event process. A reimagining of the visual sense within a concert setting, a sound mediation that performers and audience could drift into. A redefinition of the space in which we listen to music and an expantion on proceess of observing with all the senses. Featuring acclaimed Tasmanian musicians and artists Georgia Bowker Dunn, Tom Robb, Alethea Coombe and Ashley Bartholomew
Three concerts were held at the Hobart Town Hall’s underground space, as well as a live streamed version of the event. Supported by the Scintilla Festival, Storm Bay Promotions, RANT and the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund
Sensory Salon - Sense Deprivation Salon installation - M-Pavillon
documentation in progress
Beyond the Body - Paticipatory vocal project
Beyond the body was an event that used the creation of sound as a junction to explore transcendental states and non verbal experiences. By setting up frameworks for nonmusical vocalized or played sound, the project aimed to develop a stronger sense of the felt experiences that arrive from meditative states, inner intuition and deep listening.
The video above is a document of the night and the recording that was used to guide the participants into the work.
Future Soundscapes -Multi Channel Sound Installation - Agora Market Mona Foma
An envisioned soundscape of a world where non human environments have flourished and humanity has moved into an age of equilibrium with the earth.
The work is made up of field recordings captured in areas that are under irreversible change due to the effects of the Anthropocene. The restoration of these environments seemed like a good starting point of a story that reflected a change in our current ways. The eco-systems and the animal and plant species within them are currently within reach to restore. This brought up questions like, are the outcomes of Anthropocene related to humanity’s perspective to control, own and reconfigure the planet for its own needs? And what would our planet look like if humanity allow non human environments to flourish and to be?
This was the theme of the work, a soundscape, which eventuated into little to no sounds from humanity put into the composition. It’s an perspective of change. A sci-fi view where the future humans live within and co exist with the non human, where sentience between life forms is commonly understood and revered for whatever it’s value may be.
Ice | Smoke | Bär - Live Performance - The Studio
An event exhibiting progressive and experimental works interpreting the 2019 Tasmanian bushfires. A limited performance setting where participants were taken into a building come gallery, and given impromptu performances featuring sound, movement, ritual, video, sculpture, installation and drinks. Featuring prominent fringe artists, delivery extraordinary experiences of life, death and rebirth.
For my own work within the event, I created a sound composition and live sound performance. The works utilized the sound of breath as an instrument in itself to explore the Ice Smoke theme. The composition was created with the exploration of ritual and trance evoking techniques. This composition was then used within the event space as a guide to return into these states for live performances.
On each night, performance artists with varying backgrounds of dance and sound created new works. Over a 4 hour period, 20 to 40 minute improvised performance would unfold and recreate the space. The static works of the gallery were highlighted by roving performers and the space could be explored freely. The works and space seemed to have a life of their own. A sensitivity that was entwined with the attentiveness of the audiences and the openness of the performers.
An installation artwork come hair salon that experimented with the biophila experience on a multiple levels. The work explored the effect of plants on physical, emotional and psychological levels. It provided participants different sensations that stimulated the experience of biophila, while getting their hair cut or styled.
In the documentation, you see that plant life was a major factor of the installation and had a great effect on the visual sense. On a physical level, the 30-40 plants created changes to the oxygen and humidity levels, creating an inner and outer body experience. In this video you hear parts of the soundscape that was playing throughout the installation. This was setup to acoustically represent a realistic aural experience of hearing and explored a vast number of auditory environments of the non human world. Clothing and accessories were chosen to accentuate the experience, coordinating the colours and materials of what would be worn to represent a visual and tactile reminder of clothing’s roots from plants.
To take the work further, we incorporated actions during the hairdressing services that continued to build upon and explore the biophilla experience. This included silence between hairdresser and participant to allow for a deeper sensory experience, a copal smoking (an act of purification and connection that was developed my the Mayan’s), a tea offering, a misting of water and a totem of nature to be held throughout the experience.
Mona Foma 2019 – Agora Market Area
Silent Salon - Composition and Concept
A collaboration with the hair salon, Eye Am Hair. They needed a soundscape and artistic input for a hairdressing service come sensory deprivation performance work which they put on for the Mona Foma festival.
I ended up making an 8 hour playlist which included new original compositions from myself and tracks from a varied genre selection. The idea behind the sound was to take the listeners (the clients and hairdressers) into a calming and psychologically deeper place while they delved into a heightened hairdressing sensory experience. With this, I experimented with the ambient listening experience. Finding the right degree of changes in the playlist to allow for a diverse group of artists while maintaining a steady forward movement of mood in the salon. In my own recordings I created an expression of constant movement with minimal phrase development and no sequential melodic writing. I did this with a process of random selection, using recordings from a number of rehearsals I did for a show in 2017, sorting through and choosing parts that I thought were interesting and then editing the pieces together, matching and mixing until I was happy with the whole.
Submissive Salon I & II
Collaborations with Eye Am Hair salon. Installation art and hairdressing coming together to create a unique sensory and emotional journey for participants.
An independent event that drew inspiration from Dark Mofo atmosphere and mid winter celebration. The work is about letting go of control and opening up to the sensual. Hair, body and senses were submitted to hairdressers and masseurs. Not a sexual tease or deep pain exploration, but a sensory and psychological dive into what a stranger can do with your body. Hands can be tied, mouth and eyes covered, varying degrees of touch with ice and feathers used. Given alongside a massage, haircut or style without a mirror.
A installation of sound and lighting was chosen to heighten the mood and energy for all involved in the performance. Industrial, high energy, sombre and dirty. Original compositions are created for the outside space where enchanted voyeurs enjoy the teasing and testing of masked participants.
In its second year, the concept developed and ramped up. Whether it was conscious or not, the hairdressers and masseurs took their role as performance artists to another level. The experience of the participants were generally ecstatic and the atmosphere around the salon was buzzing throughout the festival.
Reduced Vision Sound Experiments - Live Performance - Melbourne Fringe
The idea was to explore performance boundaries by making an entire venue space a stage. Near darkness was chosen as a fundamental way to explore and remove the visual divisions between audience and performer. Light in some degree was still relevant to the experiment, so we explored darkness to just visible to light traces, and found that we could distort and disturb the visual sense into an evaporating field of perception. Sound wise, the nights explored trance like states through vocal sound improvisation techniques and improvised movement relating to the sound. The lack of vision being key to becoming more comfortable within the performance to go deeper within the sound, movement and expression.
Hosted by Testing Grounds
Albums
Everything Entwined – New Album out 15/08/21
Click on album cover for pre sale release and streams of the new tracks
Sanctuary – 2019 Independent Release
Sanctuary uses non human sounds out of a varied interest in the experience in of itself. It mixes the sounds of weather, animals, and elements to create a collage of the non human world. Mixing these type of sounds with minimal vocals and chanting, it plays with how we connect to what we listen to, and how it effects our inner world.
Feature album of the week on PBS FM’s Sleeptalker program.
MoVement – 2017 Independent Release
A journey to take listeners through deep levels of intuitively created music. Mixing collected improvisations and experimental editing, the album is a process that weaves vocal soundscapes in kaleidoscopic ways. Primal, raw, it takes listeners into the unknown while exploring ephemeral listening states.
Feature album on experimental free jazz program Ear of the Behearer
