Installations & Performances

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival presents the premiere of Enceindre, a new commission and first collaboration between artist filmmaker Luke Fowler and acclaimed sound recordist Chris Watson. Enceindre is a study in film and sound of two 16th century fortified cities: Berwick in the North-East of England and Pamplona in the Navarre region of the North of Spain.

If fortifications are considered ‘the body of the place’, what does it means to live in a body that is outside of time and without purpose? Could these fortress towns be considered hetrotopias? Or are they, as the writer WG Sebald vividly describes, alien structures denuded from human history? Enceindre adopts an infra-sensitive approach to place, drawing on unheard acoustic perspectives and lucid camerawork to propose a new framework in which to consider these anachronistic landscapes.

The film’s world premiere at BFMAF 2018 will be immediately followed by a ‘dark cinema’ version of the film with an alternative soundtrack diffused live by Chris Watson.

Commission supported by LUMA Foundation, Outset Scotland and Berwick-upon-Tweed Town Council

www.bfmaf.org/programme/specialevents/enceindre

Ephemera now presents Foris, an immersive installation created by acclaimed field recordist Chris Watson, Schoen and visual artist MFO – also involved in Ephemera from the start. Centered around the idea of preserving endangered ecosystems in the era of the anthropocene, a multichannel installation of field recordings of selected habitats from across the planet interconnects with the olfactory concept of a forest created by Geza Schoen. Like the initial phase of this unique project, Foris will connect to the next series of Ephemera perfume, to be launched in 2019.

www.unsound.pl/articles/news/unsound-krakow-announces-second-wave-of-artists-including-special-projects-and-premieres-tickets-on-sale-mid-august

17 carefully selected artists have been invited to perform on the new d&b Soundscape stage.

All Festival Tickets

Shirley Collins, Richard Dawson, British Sea Power, Bas Jan and Chris Watson will all be appearing at an event in Newcastle this November to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. 100 Years takes place at the historic Boiler Shop venue on Armistice weekend.The centrepiece of the events will be a special work by Chris Watson called A Nightingale On The Western Front, a sound composition based on recordings made on the the WWI battlefields in Flanders. The piece will be presented from 5am to 7:30am on Armistice Day, and will be followed by a Q&A with Watson by The Quietus’ Luke Turner, co-curator of the event. This will be followed by a special early morning set from Richard Dawson. Shirley Collins will play on the evening of the 11th – her recent memoir All In The Downs deals poignantly with the impact that the war had on her immediate family, and the people of her rural Sussex childhood. The Armistice Day events follow a gig on the Saturday night by Bas Jan and British Sea Power. There are more events to be announced, but for now you can find tickets here. Newcastle’s Boiler Shop is a listed building where the Stephenson family built the first steam locomotives, and during WWI was used in the production of military aircraft.

Photo: Chris Watson at Allt an t-Sionnaich

www.alecfinlay.com

The world premiere of an original, multi-channel sound installation from internationally acclaimed and BAFTA award-winning sound artist Chris Watson. Chris has deep ties to the North of England and has travelled the world collecting sounds. One of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, Chris’ work puts “a microphone where you can’t put your ears”.

A collaboration between Hull 2017 and the University of Hull, this three dimensional sound sculpture follows the ebbing tide, from the confluence of the rivers Trent and Ouse. An enthralling journey along the Humber estuary and out into rich melodies of the North Sea, experienced at the Gulbenkian Centre using sound, space and light as evocation.

This is a durational installation piece. This installation is approx. 30 mins in length but runs as a continuous loop. Audiences can experience a single cycle or stay longer if they wish.

www.hull2017.co.uk/whatson/events/trent-falls-to-spurn-point/

Chris Watson
William Basinski & James Elaine
Alvin Lucier
Keith Fullerton Whitman
Tim Hecker
Aleksi Perala
Catherine Christer Hennix
Kara-Lis Coverdale

www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?939757

Experience immersive live cinema in the Tanks

On the fifth night of the BMW Tate Live Exhibition Carlos Casas presents Sanctuary 2017, a site-specific infrasound environment open to the public during the day which will transition to an immersive live cinema experience. Inspired by the myth of an elephant graveyard in Sri Lanka, Sanctuary grows out of Casas’ wider research for Cemetery, an expansive film project initiated in 2007 which brings together footage he has been shooting in locations across the globe with field recordings by renowned sound artist and musician Chris Watson.

Featuring a film and light design by Carlos Casas, live sound by Chris Watson, and infrasound engineering by Tony Myatt, the live cinema performance Sanctuary segues from a projection to a spatial sound experience. Part nature documentary, part experimental fiction, the narrative follows the journey of an elephant, his mahout, and a group of poachers following their trace into the darkness of the night. By enabling visitors to tune their senses to infrasound communication throughout the day, the live completes a unique sensory testing ground for encounters with other species.

www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/performance/ten-days-six-nights/night-five

Inspired by our iconic Finback Whale, the Museum of Zoology ran a series of workshops collecting voices from Cambridge and beyond to create a soundtrack for this amazing skeleton in the newly built Whale Hall of the Museum of Zoology. With the help of choir leader Rowena Whitehead and Jo Shaw and Tizzy Faller from the Department of Music, we reached out to over 1000 people in schools, museums and other spaces. Chris Watson, award-winning wildlife sound recorder and sound artist, has combined these with his recordings of the world’s oceans into a magical, atmospheric journey around the world. Here is the finished piece, which you can hear in the Whale Hall from late 2017.

Watch Ocean Song Soundscape here

Free
Friday 20 January
18.00 – 21.00

Inspired by Picasso’s circle in Montmartre in the first decade of the 20th century, the Gallery becomes an artists’ colony featuring a wild cross-pollination of ideas, music, poetry, performance, art, film and dance. For one evening only, step inside the mind of Picasso where Everything You Can Imagine is Real…

Curated and Produced by Martyn Ware for Illustrious.

Contributing artists:

Zarina Bhimji, Georgina Brett, Peter Coyle, Eclectic Method, Vanessa Fenton, Feral Five, Sarah Hopkins, Aaron Horn, IN-IS, Marcus Lyon, Di Mainstone, Tracey Moberly, Nikky Norton-Shafau, Obsrvtry, Radiophonic Workshop, Ian Reddington, Cherub Sanson, Scanner, John Shuttleworth, The Spinning Yarns, Chris Sullivan, Toby Thompson, Gabriel Ware, Martyn Ware, Chris Watson,Tim Wheater, White Noise, Luke Wright

Download programme here

Supported by Goldman Sachs

Soundscape system and headphones by Bowers & Wilkins

Part of the programme of events complementing Picasso Portraits.

www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/lateshift/Picasso_programme.pdf

A Night conducted by Cédric Villani

With Chris Watson, Martin Hertau (TARA)…

Following the Bat Night in 2014 and the Night of Honey in 2015, the Nights of Uncertainty program continues its exploration of the natural world together with Cédric Villani.
English musician Chris Watson is one of the leading figure of field recording today. Throughout the evening, he takes the audience on a journey, listening to the winds of the Earth, from the North Polar Zone to Antarctica, through the plains of Tanzania, the coasts of Thailand or the Scottish Highlands. Cédric Villani discusses with Martin Hertau, captain of Tara schooner, thanks to a live connexion from its anchorage near Maupihaa atoll, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in order to speak about sailing with winds.

Through the various contributions, as well as screenings and readings, Cédric Villani, a mathematician with an infinite curiosity, explores one of the first sound phenomena appeared on Earth and brings to it his own scientific and poetic perspective.

https://www.fondationcartier.com

Monday, September 5th at 8 pm
CEMETERY
Imaginary Journeys to the Elephants’ Graveyard
With Carlos Casas, Chris Watson & Joyce Poole
Walk through the exhibition spaces and in the garden (screening, installations, conference, concert)

Duration: approx. 1h15

Carlos Casas’ movies are at the crossroad of documentaries, fictions, visual and sound arts. For this Nomadic Night, the Catalan filmmaker has chosen to bring the audience inside the making of his next film entitled Cemetery, a visual and aural experience inspired by the mythical elephants’ graveyard. At once an action movie, an experimental film and a science-fictional documentary, Cemetery is a sort of initiatory trip, an acoustic Noah’s arc paying equal tribute to Tarzan and to La Région Centrale by Michael Snow.

During this Nomadic Night, conceived as an exclusive insight into this project, spectators will engage in a quest for aural and visual remnants of the mythical graveyard using photographs, drawings and research documents pertaining to the film. The event will be punctuated by a conference on the language of elephants and by a concert inspired by the film’s soundscape.

With the exclusive participation of Chris Watson during one concert – founding member of the post-Punk band Cabaret Voltaire in the 1970’s, sound recorder for “Life” the BBC documentary series by Sir David Attenborough, he is one of the main figures of field recording today.

With the intervention of Joyce Poole, researcher specialized into the social and cognitive behavior of elephants and cofounder of the NGO “Elephant Voices”.

Information
No assigned seats.

Le Fondation Cartier

Compass is a brand new sound installation from world renowned wildlife recordist Chris Watson and acclaimed Northumbrian poet Linda France. Specially commissioned by Cheeseburn, and located in four different places around the grounds, visitors are invited to listen to a lightly orchestrated soundscape of birdsong, wildlife, weather and original poems – each composed to the specific setting, the time of day and the season.

Chris Watson and Linda France visited Cheeseburn frequently over one year to create this exciting new installation, where a world riven with migration and change finds a compass in the sense of soon itself, the poetry of everyday listening. Visit the Formal Garden, The Courtyard, The Potting Shed and the Stable Loft to experience Compass this August Bank Holiday weekend.

cheeseburn.com/events/1536-2/

Homo Faber: A Rainbow Caravan

‘The Great Circle’ is an Ambisonic sound installation taking the audience on a journey from Northumberland to Aichi overland via a Great Circle route.

www.e-flux.com/announcements/participating-artists-announced-for-2016/