Sounds and a bit of text about them
Whispering Tree and Tongues (formerly known as Imagined Polyphonies)
Recently I was part of Prayer House which was a drop in room for prayer at Spring Harvest in Minehead. We had step various stations for people to aid people in their prayer. I set up two installations. One was the whispering tree. I hung 10 stereo speakers (so 20 in total) up and a … Continue reading Whispering Tree and Tongues (formerly known as Imagined Polyphonies)
How I listen is how I understand
Back in the 80s I was telling my friends how much I loved the Ghostbusters theme tune. And I sang (not very well) what I thought was the tune. I sang this bit below. And my friends laughed. They said ‘No!’ It goes like this… What had happened was that I had sung(?) the bass … Continue reading How I listen is how I understand
Imagined Polyphonies
This was a piece I made for the Kochi Bienalle 2017 as part of CRiSAP. Background I come from a community from Kerala known as the Syrian Christians. It is not altogether clear where our geographical origins are from but the religious practices originate from the Syrian rites that the Christian communities in Syria formulated … Continue reading Imagined Polyphonies
Breathing in
I’ve been working on a piece with multiple voices. As part of the compositional process I was trying to capture the breath of the voices. Now when we record breath, if it’s an outward breath, the recording devices find it hard to capture it. This has to do with the nature of sound itself, since … Continue reading Breathing in
Duccio’s Altar Piece (Voiced)
Over the last week I got to put a piece up in the Prayer House at the festival Spring Harvest. The piece is based on Duccio’s Triptych of the Crucifixion. I used the central panel as the basis of the piece. The characters in this panel are voiced through scripture readings and music. The installation … Continue reading Duccio’s Altar Piece (Voiced)
The more you see, the less you hear
Yesterday the family went on the London Eye. Everything about it is geared towards the visual. The name, the glass pod and the vending of views. I tried to listen to the experience. The moment that the glass pod shut its doors, it seemed to shut out London. You couldn’t hear the incessant traffic or … Continue reading The more you see, the less you hear
23
Over 2013 I recorded a familiar text in familiar situations. However the text is not normally spoken in these situations. So this is an experiment with 23 unedited recordings to see what happens when the text is said in these situations and how we hear these texts in these unusual pairings.