Caroline Mesquita is one of the most intriguing and innovative young sculptors to emerge out of France, and the Blaffer Art Museum is excited to present her first solo museum exhibition in the United States.
“: (…) an installation composed of a large ‘mother cell’ and a film commissioned for the exhibition. The video resembles a scientific documentary as if we were observing situations under the microscope. ‘It is a ballad within the human body’, reveals Mesquita, ‘bringing together blood cells, bacteria, viruses and many other microorganisms in abstract and colourful landscapes ‘. “
We walk together (2020) is thought as a field-recording score that asks would-be performers to think sonically about a place, to produce sound within that place, but also to reflect on the changes caused by the pandemic both at an environmental and subjective level. This collaborative endeavor is a continuation of my exploratory work in novel ways of curating sound artwork outside institutional frameworks. The resulting work, using a visual reference, is a multi-layered and multi-linguistic ‘sequence shot’: an audio piece that straddles the line between fiction, documentary and musical composition.
The sonic essay is a collaboration between a series of artists located in different parts of the globe: Rui Chaves (Loulé, Portugal, 25/06/2020), Eduardo Patrício (Koziegłowy, Poland, 17/06/2020), Laura Romero (Valencia, Spain, 06/06/2020), Lilian Nakao Nakahodo (Curitiba, Brazil, 05/07/2020), Luz da Camara (Evoramonte, Portugal, 19/06/2020).
6DoF (six-degrees-of-freedom) refers to the possibility of a rigid body (or a representational device of it) to move freely in three transitional and three rotational degrees.
Designing sound for immersive VR 6DoF experiences is usually done by using mono or stereo sound artificially spatialised through software processing the seeks to replicate reverberation, diffusion and other acoustic behaviors.
Now, doing a live sound recording, in a physical acoustic space so it can be used in the context of 6DoF VR is said to be impossible or, at least, very hard.
To try and achieve just that, I used simultaneous recordings made with 9 ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone arrays, placing multiple ambisonics sound files in a scene I built in Unity 3D. The sound sound sources in those recordings are physical objects.
The following video explains the process, step by step:
Here we have 2 videos that share the same source material (audio and video recordings), but that had different post-processing workflows, resulting in:
A 360-degree video with 1st order Ambisonics audio, and
A ‘tiny planet’ video with binaural audio.
(Actual videos bellow)
I prepared the videos (concept, audio / video recording and editing) for ZYLIA and they were published on their YouTube channel.
The recordings were made at Barigui Park, Curitiba (Brazil). For some more details, you can check this short tutorial blog post.
Claudio Lima’s 3rd album, Rosa dos Ventos, is an interesting project that brings together regional Maranhao (Brazilian state), pop, classical and electronic music. It’s a song album, with several music personae glued up by Claudio’s beautiful and powerful voice.
A long project, following the singer’s process of composition and repertoire selection. In 2013, I started working on the album’s initial arrangements, defining its aesthetic direction. I worked on it for almost 4 years as arranger and producer. In May 2017, I led a group of musicians for the album premiere concert, playing MIDI guitar, drums, pandeiro and synths.
This is the result of my practice based research at Queen’s University Belfast (more specifically, at SARC), supervised by Dr. Pedro Rebelo and Dr. Paul Stapleton (2nd supervisor).
Here, you can find the full portfolio commentary in PDF, related posts and video documentation for each piece.
Abstract
Through a creative portfolio and an analytical and critical commentary, this research investigates the use of spatial references in the composition of semi-open environmental sound works. The portfolio explores a number of strategies to make use of spatial references as formal compositional components to enable more intuitive performance/reading experiences. The pieces present a number of electronically mediated scenarios in varied formats; concert, installation and mobile application. Counting on the intuitive way one tries to constantly identify surrounding spaces, each piece uses physical (performance/presentation spaces) and representational devices (illustrations, maps, video projections, spatialised sound etc.) to articulate and delimitate semi-open artistic experiences. Such ambiguous scenarios are enabled by both the unpredictability of elements of each work and the dependence on the subjective interpretations of the agents involved in the process. The creative processes presented here in a descriptive, analytical and critical manner attempt to make an artistic contribution and provide documental material for future reflection about related practices.
Come Across is a soundwalk based performance. The work presents a listening focused preparation strategy that involves multiple simultaneous soundwalks, mapping, audio and video recording. Such preparation stage leads to a concert performance that re-enacts the soundwalks by drawing on map in an exercise of listening and reminiscing.
The work was developed collectively by Diogo Alvim, Eduardo Patricio and Rui Chaves (Unlikely Places ensemble).
In 2012, in 10-minute long a poster session part of Global Composition Conference in Darmstadt, Germany, we talked about Come Across’ general concept and presented a short video documentation with excerpts of a rehearsal realised in the Sonic Lab at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast). This was a good opportunity to evaluate other people’s response to the work’s proposal and it helped us to format the version for a future performance.
In 2013, we (Unlikely Places) performed the piece during the Sonorities Festival in Belfast.
Later the same year, in Lisbon, as part of Echoes#2* programme, the Unlikely Places Ensemble realised a related four-day workshop (from 19 to 22 September).
* Echoes is a program for the city of Lisbon that aims to put together thoughts, experiences and interventions on the relationship between LISTENING and PLACE (2013).
“Based on the true story of Eugenia Falleni, who passed as a man in early 20th century Australia, Lachlan Philpott’s play picks apart the rules of gender and sexuality that punish any transgression in a time when even being able to identify oneself as ‘trans’ or ‘lesbian’ was a long way off for most people There is no way to know what really happened behind the closed doors of bedrooms of the past and Philpott playfully explores this ambiguity and confusion to raise questions about our own assumptions of gender.”