Installations & Performances

Enceindre: Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival | 22nd September 2018

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

Unsound, Krakow | 7th – 14th October 2018

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

WOMAD, Malmesbury | 26th – 29th July 2018

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

All Festival Tickets

100 Years, Newcastle | 11th November 2018

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.

Whispering in the Reeds, Snape Maltings | 16th June 2018

The Pumphouse, 7pm

In mid June, world-renowned sound recordist Chris Watson will be at work in the reed beds of RSPB North Warren…. the result? A completely new multi-channel sound piece which reflects the songs and rhythms of the wildlife within this landscape over a 24-hour period.

Part of The Pumphouse

Tickets

No Man’s Land; Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts | Brighton Tuesday 27th March – Friday 13th April

No Man’s Land is an audio installation celebrating the sounds, rhythms and music of the world’s seas and oceans.

No Man’s Land is at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts until Fri 13 Apr.

Interview for BN1 magazine can be read here

Sound Mind: Graham Duff interviews Chris Watson, about his groundbreaking work with the experimental music groups Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, his career as one of the world’s most celebrated wildlife recordists, his albums of field recordings released on the Touch label and his new site specific sound installation ‘No Man’s Land’. Contains extensive examples of both Watson’s music and field recordings. Headphone listening recommended throughout.

Yoiking with the Winged Ones | SDG, Norway

Sound installation by Ánde Somby. Technical Manager is Christopher Watson and Elin Már Øyen Vister.

You can visit the exhibition from 24th February until 8th April 2018 and you watch on NRK here

Surrey Moog Symposium | 3rd February 2018

The Surrey Moog Symposium 2018 will take place on 3rd Feb 2018 in PATS Studio 1 at the University of Surrey, Guildford. Surrey’s Department of Music and Media, in collaboration with the Moog Soundlab UK and Moog Music Inc. (USA) will present a day of performances and discussions celebrating the life and legacy of Dr Robert ‘Bob’ Moog and the lasting impact of his sound synthesisers.

The Symposium will feature live performances by Chris Watson, using modular sound processing systems and recordings of New York environments, Chris Carter will give his second live performance using his own new modular system, and one of the world’s leading authorities on electronic music, Thom Holmes will present the symposium’s keynote lecture “The Sound of Moog”.

www.chriscarter.co.uk www.thomholmes.com/Noise_and_Notations/About_Thom_Holmes.html

Chris Watson’s performance will be supported by Finlay Shakespeare.

The symposium also marks the launch of the new Moog Recording Library record label, who release a series of new recordings on vinyl of work created with the Moog Soundlab UK over the past three years.

The Symposium will also feature a roundtable discussion Bob Moog and the “living machines”, and live demonstrations of the Moog Soundlab UK and new modular-synthesis developments by Finlay Shakespeare.

Only 200 tickets are available.

Details of all events and online tickets sales:

www.surrey.ac.uk/arts/music/20180203-moog-symposium

Surrey Moog Symposium 2018 PressRelease

Interview Ina/GRM | Paris, France

Dubplate in The Highlands

Photo: Chris Watson at Allt an t-Sionnaich

www.alecfinlay.com

TRENT FALLS TO SPURN POINT | June – July 2017

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/

The Long Now presented by Berlin Atonal | 26th March 2017

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

BMW Tate Live Exhibitions: TEN DAYS SIX NIGHTS NIGHT FIVE | 31st March 2017

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

Ocean Song Soundscape | Museum of Zoology, Cambridge

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

Everything You Can Imagine Is Real, National Portrait Gallery | 20th January 2017

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

Night of Wind, Cartier Foundation | Paris 8 November 2016

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

The Nomadic Nights, Fondation Cartier | Paris July 2016 – January 2017

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 at Cheeseburn | Newcastle 27 – 29 August 2016

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/

Aichi Triennale 2016 | Japan August 2016

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/

The Santa Rita Concerts | 24th February 2016

24 February 2016, 19.00

The Little Museum of Dublin
15 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin

An evening with Chris Watson, one of the world’s leading recorders of natural phenomena. The evening begins at 7pm with a Santa Rita wine reception and pre-concert interview with the performer. The performance begins at 8pm sharp. Tickets €13 pre-booked; €15 on the door.

For tickets and info