SOUND SEAM
Aura Satz
Sound Seam is a film featuring abstract imagery of close-ups of gramophone grooves, giving voice to the idea that every surface, in particular parts of our anatomy, is potentially inscribed with an unheard sound or echoes of voices from the past. The soundtrack’s musical composition is interlaced with layers of voice-overs narrating a tale of mourning which draws on Rainer Maria Rilke’s text ‘Primal Sound’, where he reflects on the possibility of playing the coronal suture of a skull with a phonograph needle. The film uses microscopic photography, scanning electron microscopy, and sounds of otoacoustic emissions to uncover haunting aural bonescapes. The film's sound-track is composed by musician and phonograph/gramophone specialist Aleks Kolkowski.
during 2009-2010 Aura has been artist in residence at UCL's Ear Institute, where she undertook research into hearing anatomy and shot most of the microscopic footage, including a golden cochlea, an ear drum and inner ear hair cells. the horn sequences of the film were shot at the Museum for music automatons in Seewen, switzerland, during their temporary exhibition 'when sound still came from the horn'. all close-ups of acetate disc and wax cylinder sound grooves are from the private collection of Aleks kolkowski.
Sound Seam premieres at the AV festival in Newcastle in March 2010 as a complex filmic sound installation in collaboration with Aleks Kolkowski, featuring 20 original phonograph and gramophone horns, a number of hearing trumpets, and an 8ft auxetophone horn on loan from the discovery museum in newcastle. the installation will tour to the Wellcome Collection in london in December 2010. the film was funded by the wellcome Trust, as was the expanded installation version.
For a sneak preview and interview checkout Animate Projects website for the moving image Engine
Documentation of the Installation at the Av Festival can be seen on the Wire website
Microscopic view of Shellac Grooves Microscopic view of Acetate Swarf
Stereocilia Sound Inscriptions
AV FESTIVAL:
Aura Satz in collaboration with Aleks Kolkowski: Sound Seam
5 – 14 March 2010
AV Festival 10: Energy presents the world premiere of Sound Seam, an atmospheric film installation by artist Aura Satz in collaboration with musician Aleks Kolkowski.
The installation explores sound inscription, encryption, decoding and the material quality of memory. It draws on the German poet Rilke’s 1919 text Primal Sound in which he proposes that the groove-like line of a skull (the coronal suture) could be played with a gramophone needle.
The mesmeric film uses microscopic close-ups of gramophone grooves, wax and acetate shavings, phonograph cylinder recording and erasing technology, as well as footage of the anatomy of the ear, where inner ear hair cells have been animated to look like a sound groove, and a gold-plated cochlea spirals like a shellac disc. The musical soundtrack is derived from the analysis of sounds made by playing a gramophone needle across a skull and from otoacoustic sounds emitted by the ear. Every one of the hundred-odd recordings used has been individually cut onto a wax cylinder or disc record, some even over-written so as to create unexpected surface noises, scratches, glitches, loops and echoes. You are invited to listen to a magnificent array of original phonograph, gramophone horns and ear trumpets and piece together the various strands of this intriguing ‘forensic love story’ voice-over which draws on Rilke’s text.
Guided Exhibition Tour of Great North Museum: Hancock and Hatton Gallery, Saturday 6 March, 2.30-3.30pm. Tour starts with Sound Seam.
to see an interview on the opening night at the Av festival click here
Exhibition produced by AV Festival 10 in partnership with Great North Museum: Hancock. Funded by The Wellcome Trust and produced during an Artist Residency at the Ear Institute, UCL, London. Sound design produced with support from the AHRC.
Written, directed, filmed and edited by Aura Satz
Music and sound recordings onto wax cylinder and acetate discs made by Aleks Kolkowski
Voiceovers by Aleks Kolkowski and Aura Satz
Otoacoustic recordings provided by Prof. David Kemp and recorded onto wax cylinder.
Aura would like to thank all staff at the Ear institute, in particular David McAlpine, David Kemp, Andy Forge, Dan Jagger, Ruth Taylor, Jonathan Ashmore, Torsten Marquardt, Kate Lay, Neil Roberts and Bradford Backus. Special thanks also to Christoph E. Hänggi at the Museum for Music Automatons.
Aura would also like to thank Shira Hess, David Edelsztein and of course Leila for their patience and support throughout.
Production Stills:
AURA SATZ presents
TURNTABLE TABLEAU, a film performance, Sun 9 May, 5pm
ICA - Live Weekend 1 - Performance etc (produced by David Gryn)
Aura Satz presents a talking book ventriloquist act, followed by a live soundtrack to her film ‘Sound Seam’,
performed by Alex Baker, Lina Hakim, Chris McCormack, Roger Orwell, Frances Scott and Aura Satz.
‘Sound Seam’ is presented at the ICA as a silent film accompanied only by the surface noise of crackle, whilst the performers enact a live sculptural sound-track, a spiraling multivocal counterpart, a cornocupia of voices recounting a tale of mourning and technology, a forensic love-story of sorts in which the voices overlap, echo and pre-empt each other. The cinematic stage is animated by a voice-over carousel, a spinning tableau vivant, a canon of voices amplified by horns set on a rotating stage.
More info
FREE ENTRY TO ALL EVENTS AND SCREENINGS
http://www.ica.org.uk/
LINKS