Sound simultaneously exists as an invisible physical phenomenon and as an independent artistic medium which, through its own intangibility, can only exist in a relational context. It unpretentiously reflects, amplifies and, therefore, gathers our attention on ‘the other’ or on the condition of ‘the other’. We can harness, describe and analyze pretty much anything through sound, be it an object, a situation, a sociopolitical matter or an ecological phenomenon. Being in itself introspective, sound builds an awareness, shows the invisible. In her seminal text “On Sonic Meditation” American composer Pauline Oliveiros describes the listening balance existing between attention and awareness, which she visually illustrates with a simple, drawn image: a circle with a dot in the middle: “ While one’s attention is focused to a point on something specific, it is possible to remain aware of one’s surroundings… Attention is narrow, pointed and selective– that’s the dot in the middle. Awareness is broad, diffuse and inclusive – that’s the circle. (…). Awareness can be expanded until it seems all-inclusive. Attention can intensify awareness. Awareness can support attention. There is attention to awareness; there is awareness of attention”.
The project Kintai.Kitaip invites to activate the sonic awareness of Kintai soundscape.
Marija Rasa Kudabaitė (LT/BE) and Audrius Šimkunas (LT) will spend 2 weeks in Kintai arts residency during which, while using using various recording and sound processing techniques, they will create multichannel sounds sculptures.
Each acoustic environment has its very own characteristics consisting of multiple layers of cultural, sociological and biological identities. The field that processes, recognizes and analyses this continuously shifting sound complexity is acoustic ecology, a term pioneered by Hildergard Westercamp. Kintai.Kitaip aims to invite the commissioned artists to reflect on and join the notions of acoustic ecology and sonic awareness as described by Pauline Oliveiros to gather listeners’ attention on a multilayered sonic landscape of Kintai, presented in the shape of intangible sound sculptures.
The works will be presented in two public events and a digital release on MIC Bandcamp platform.
30.07.2022, 20h00, Kintai Lutheran Church 01.08.2022, 19h00, Composer’s Union, Vilnius.
Invited guest for the concert in Vilnius – experimental and acousmatic music composer Yiorgis Sakellariou.
ARTISTS:
Marija Rasa Kudabaitė is a musician and sound artist from Lithuania, living and working in Brussels. Her music centers around her interest in sound spatiality, as well as in sonic fragility and structure that arises out of textural subtleties. Currently, she is continuing working on series of acousmatic pieces for multichannel speakers system that she has begun to develop during her studies at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague. These fixed media pieces - sonic landscapes emerging out of delicate noises, electronic sounds, and field recordings from the extremely quiet places, attentively put together by using a micro montage technique.
Audrius Šimkūnas (aka Sala) has been working in the field of sound art for more than 15 years. He is interested in sound, recorded outside recording studio, or, in other words, field recordings. Audrius Šimkūnas is the founder of the free-form performance ensemble “Sala”, initiated in 1994. In his solo work Audrius Šimkūnas is interested in quiet sounds, also sounds inaudible without special technical means. In addition to collecting sound from the environment, local sounds and the documentation of sound maps, the artist organizes sound walks, sound art workshops, and conversations about acoustic ecology. A special place in his practice is devoted to sounds, inaudible to human ears, but those heard using non-traditional technical means: underwater microphones, contact microphones, seismic sensors, electromagnetic field antennas. All this helps to reveal the inaudible world around us.
Organised by:
Kintai arts
Information Centre for Music Lithuania
Parners: Composers Union
Financed by: Lithuanian Council for Culture
Graphic desing: Ugnė Balčiūnaitė
