Stefan Östersjö
Senior lecturer
Activation and Participation in Ecological Sound Art
Author
Summary, in English
Showing of two installations that result from an ecological sound art practice and its complex and radical modulation of performing/composing/curating within assemblages. The works spring out of an ecological-enactive approach, where through relational technique and fleshy listening the authors explore what the performative body can do; what connections and networks it creates across temporality and space in its embodied memory action states. The site-specific performances, here transformed for an indoor presentation, took place at an abandoned cement factory in Iceland and a foreshore in the South of Sweden.
I Play Cement (2017-19), by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, initially created for video and 8 speakers was reworked for DARE into a binaural headphone version. It is part of a series of works based on activation of a site, and represents a performer’s extended and active engagement with space: a method to break away from tradition, exploring how new aspects of the environment’s structure or the oikos can be revealed through radical assemblages.
The second work is drawn from the participatory approach embodied by Östersjö’s practice of aeolian guitar performance, in which a guitar is stringed around a tree, and performed in interaction with the wind. The player becomes part of an eco-system through this performer-guitar-strings-wind-tree assemblage. The performance is presented through the video installation Bunkeflo Strandängar: site-specific resonance with aeolian guitar #1.
The concept of “fleshy listening” was coined by Stefánsdóttir and Östersjö. “Building on Manning’s elaboration of fleshy touching/touch, fleshy listening/listen merges the terminology with a performer’s tactile thinking, in thinking-through-listening. This thinking of the sonorous BwO, i.e. fleshy listening implies the expressive potential as we perform and thus compose with our bodies” (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, forthcoming).
The contributors also participated in the panel, Plateau 4: On Music Performance. Chaired by George E. Lewis. With: Guy Dubious, Fredrik Hedelin & Robert Ek, Alex Nowitz, Stefan Östersjö & Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, Joana Sá, Chris Stover
I Play Cement (2017-19), by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, initially created for video and 8 speakers was reworked for DARE into a binaural headphone version. It is part of a series of works based on activation of a site, and represents a performer’s extended and active engagement with space: a method to break away from tradition, exploring how new aspects of the environment’s structure or the oikos can be revealed through radical assemblages.
The second work is drawn from the participatory approach embodied by Östersjö’s practice of aeolian guitar performance, in which a guitar is stringed around a tree, and performed in interaction with the wind. The player becomes part of an eco-system through this performer-guitar-strings-wind-tree assemblage. The performance is presented through the video installation Bunkeflo Strandängar: site-specific resonance with aeolian guitar #1.
The concept of “fleshy listening” was coined by Stefánsdóttir and Östersjö. “Building on Manning’s elaboration of fleshy touching/touch, fleshy listening/listen merges the terminology with a performer’s tactile thinking, in thinking-through-listening. This thinking of the sonorous BwO, i.e. fleshy listening implies the expressive potential as we perform and thus compose with our bodies” (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, forthcoming).
The contributors also participated in the panel, Plateau 4: On Music Performance. Chaired by George E. Lewis. With: Guy Dubious, Fredrik Hedelin & Robert Ek, Alex Nowitz, Stefan Östersjö & Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, Joana Sá, Chris Stover
Department/s
- Teachers (Malmö Academy of Music)
Publishing year
2019
Language
English
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Music
Conference name
Machinic Assemblages of Desire
Conference date
2019-12-09 - 2019-12-11
Conference place
Ghent, Belgium
Status
Published