Paarden Eiland Makes Noise (first two events)

Earlier this year Rowan Smith contacted me to say that he and Ingrid Lee would be coming to SA. They had been collaborating on works such as their piano transcription of a smashed guitar and wanted to make something happen experimental sound wise in Cape Town.

The result has so far been two really cool November events comprising chest rattling exercises in feedback, through deep immersion sound bathing. I was fortunate enough to be part of the launch event and happily subjected the audience to a participative Silent Noise performance, a technique I’ve been using in my teaching.

For upcoming events and video and pics see the Paarden Eiland Concerts website.

For the launch event Ingrid created two feedback experiences, one of them by causing multiple snare drums to sympathetically feed off each other. A deep textural experience which made my chest feel as though it were a snare drum itself. Here Ingrid uses a pair of my Earshells to listen to Dean Henning’s feedback installation Frequency Lumens Place.

Dean Henning explains how his launch event installation uses the resonant sound of the room to feed into itself. The sound produced can be further modulated by listeners moving inbetween the input microphones and the four corner speakers. I recently wrote a post in which I described this piece’s primal nature.

At the launch I performed Silent Noise – a participatory experience using body percussion to become aware of how we ‘think’ sound – a serious objective with, as you can see by my facial expression, sometimes hilarious outcomes . I’ve written in more detail about this performance and my approach here.         (pic: Kim Gurney)

Simon and Stuart aka Sai’i and Zenekai’i, and collectively KALATA, fire up the cyclotron. This second performance of the series used recordings from the particle accelerator in Faure Cape Town. The audience reclined on Turkish carpets then descended into deep sound immersion. An hour later the piece ended and the listeners held the silence for long minutes listening to the shore wind moving over the venue’s roof.

KALATA’s setup comprising a set of wonderfully hick (and jealousy inducing) arduino based midi controllers.