Sound Migrations

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, violinist Meredith Bates composed a new work titled Sound Migrations, produced in collaboration with artist Josema Zamorano and vocalist Lief Hall. Performed over two nights in the Grand Luxe Hall, the work featured live improvised violin, vocals, audio samples, and projected visuals.

Distributed throughout the space using an octophonic (8-channel) sound system, Hall manipulated pre-recorded samples of Bates’s violin while creating her own sounds with voice synthesizers and field recordings from natural settings. Using a digital camera, Zamorano spontaneously distorted and created feedback between printed photomontages of landscapes, processed in-situ as colour field projections. 

Pairing the sound of flying birds with projected images of nature, Sound Migrations served to question the relationship of humans to borders: how are the imaginary lines which define nations permeable to the natural world and its creatures, but impassable to families, friends, and collaborators?

A maximum of eight audience members attended each performance, which ran for 20–25 minutes. At intervals across the duration of the performance, they were guided by an usher and light cues to move to different positions in the Grand Luxe Hall to experience the work. 

Curated by Aram Bajakian.

Video documentation of this event is available upon request.