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Yara Asmar ~ Stuttering Music

By 2006, more than a decade and a half after the conclusion of the Lebanese Civil War, the city of Beirut seemed to be experiencing an era of cultural resurgence. The Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon had finally ended in 2000, and free of the association with conflict, Beirut’s cultural vibrancy was becoming a regular feature in newspapers and TV. That summer, I visited Modern Art Oxford’s…

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Sound at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024)

I've used this blog to 'debrief' from visits to La Biennale di Venezia since the 54th edition in 2011, so it feels like a tradition to be at my kitchen table in Venice, reflecting on what I heard today. This year, I have a month to explore in between shifts invigilating the British Pavilion, so I hope to have a more thorough review to offer.

This editions' title is 'Foreigners Everywhere', inspired by an early 2000s neon by artist duo Claire Fontaine (on display at Arsenale). The 'amplification of marginalised voices' is an important theme for the curator Adriano Pedrosa, the first Latin American to hold the post, and the first openly queer curator. I'm interested in how this 'amplification' is enacted. There's widespread representation of trans folk and artists from indigenous communities within the Central Pavilion for sure, but how does it feel to literally hear voices of marginalised communities in this space, and how are they presented beyond the literal?

There are over 200 exhibitions and thousands of artworks on display across Venice this summer - I'm limiting this review to national pavilions, though there were plenty of sound works included in other shows. If you're planning to go, I have some additional recommendations for works to visit at the end.

AUSTRIA (Giardini) Telephone booths stand in a line, transported from a Traiskirchen refugee camp, once used by the artist to let her family know her whereabouts. Apparently operational if you have a coin, to me these were affecting - I think of who I would call, and others who stood in line to hear the voice of a loved one. Occasional ballet performances tell a queer but real history, in which the theme of Swan Lake was looped and replaced regular television programming in Soviet states at times of transitions of power, sometimes for days. A record player spins a bootleg x-ray record ('bone music'), poor quality sound on a high spec deck. Whose skull was this, and what happened to them?

BENIN (Arsenale) Gė lė dė philosophy speaks from the walls of a round structure. The project was conceived following a 'curatorial listening tour' by the artist with local traditional rulers, who felt a process of re-matriation is needed in response to climate issues and global conflicts. I'm in need of a transcript or translator to say more.

BRAZIL (Giardini) 'Ka'a Pûera' refers to both a space in the field, and a camouflaged forest bird. The artist forms an Okará, or listening assembly, with women, chiefs and shamans to ask - what are the community’s urgent needs? I would have liked to know more about the process. How did the artist listen to the assembly? Did they all agree? What happened as a result of this listening?

CATALONIA (In town, I'm already stretching the theme) This largely sonic work is based on a mediaeval Catalan text, in which a human protagonist is subjected to a trial by animals questioning human superiority. High-end speakers spatialise audio and play infrasonic recordings, placing you amongst bats, bees and other beings. I wanted this to evoke a feeling of kinship, but I couldn't stop looking at all the fancy tech.

CYPRUS (In town) We step into a recently vacated corporate agency - Forever Informed's business cards lie around the waiting room, with sinister references to technologies that are always watching. The artist/curators keep vigil over the show; through the window, algae-covered pipes shielding hydrophones transfer signals from the canal to the exhibition. Transmission and interference are key themes; the catalogue tells the story of radio’s entanglement with covert colonial propaganda. The voices I hear in this exhibition are ghosts - 'agitators of social memory' that we live with and could do more to heed.

CZECH REPUBLIC (Giardini) Playful in its soft fabrics yet not for the fainthearted - we enter the corpse of Lenka - a giraffe that was transported to Czechoslovakia yet died in captivity two years later. An operatic performance, whilst enacted by singers in yellow jumpsuits with megaphones, sounds quite trad. More interesting to me are the stories of children found within the exhibition, as they try to make sense of this sad history.

GREAT BRITAIN (Giardini) John Akomfrah's work is organised into five 'cantos', beginning at the front of the pavilion, who's grand entrance (like its neighbours Germany and France) has been closed, asking visitors to enter (symbolically, literally) 'through the back door'. You drift around the first room - video screens with watery scenes, colonial reminders submerged in the shallows, sea shanties eerily hummed. For Akomfrah (like Gilroy and Drexciya), bodies of water hold memory - water flows throughout the screens of the display. Upstairs, Dubmorphology (Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart) have hung all manner of audio devices amongst speakers broadcasting the voices of anti-racist activists and (apparently though not audibly) the resonance of the Biennale mixed from hidden microphones outside. The next five rooms each take a theme - impact of pesticides, struggle for independence by colonised nations, flooding caused by climate change - with symbolic objects presented around figures in raincoats. They stand in the present (between layers of archive material) in epic landscapes and stare into the distance. To me, these figures are the 'listeners' (the exhibition title is Listening All Night to the Rain), inviting us to reflect with them. Quotes (Pauline Oliveros, bell hooks) embossed in gold on the threshold of every room guide us in this process - framing listening as a form of activism.

GREECE (Giardini) A fun display - alluring with or without context. A huge machine is alive in the centre, leaking water, gathering it up. A spotlight draws your attention to different zones - one corner contains images of a woman I was unfamiliar with and a mixing desk of epic proportions. Dryland is a collective work that displays fragments of a village festival, and speaks to the impact of technologies on rural areas. Sound and music seem a key part of this investigation, and the text suggests both might hold 'political potential' within these landscapes.

IRELAND (Arsenale) Evictions from land (both historic and present-day) are the key thematic of this opera, displayed on many flatscreens embedded in earth-bricks. I remember something intriguing about language... but now can't find much reference to this narrative.

ITALY (Arsenale) Pauline Oliveros gets another mention, as listening relationships are the theme of this exhibition. Due Qui/To Hear is a maze of scaffolding turned into organ pipes. Motorised rolls play a composition, a wave machine churns mud around in a strange centrepiece and speakers on trees outside play experimental music. The audience 'compose' their own version of this by walking their ears around the space. Honestly, I think this talked a better game than it felt as an experience. David Toop has contributed an essay to the catalogue, offering a kinder and more thoughtful review.

HUNGARY (Giardini) If you're interested in techno subcultures and/or abstract painting this might be more for you than for me. Perhaps I was oversaturated by the time I came to visit, but Techno Zen appeared vacuous and garish - if you responded differently I'd welcome another opinion.

JAPAN (Giardini) Spindly structures with criss-crossing wires activate everyday objects to make sounds. Decomposing fruit composes (?) the sounds we hear - electrodes converting moisture into signals. Endearing in their fragility and playfulness, I enjoyed looking and listening - the text's links to flooding and climate disaster were less clear to me, and I'm not too taken with 'sonification'.

KOSOVO (In town) This work is about gender and labour, with a harrowing case study: apparenly nearly a third of female workers in a Turkish delight factory need knee surgery due to their working conditions. Their experiences fill the space amid these giant metal knee sculptures.

LUXEMBOURG (Arsenale) 'Sound as a tool for negotiation' is apparently the topic explored in this display. Designed as a sound studio, with transducers attached to glass on wheels and heavy grey curtains, the pavilion is a modular space inhabited by four artists-in-residence who are tasked with contributing research to the project. I didn't chance upon a moment where the space was activated - it looked like an austere vision of the future (complete with faceless robot assistants) where we can no longer afford colour.

NIGERIA (In town) Over several floors of a Palazzo in Dorsoduro, Nigeria is 'reimagined' through many voices. Fatimah Tuggar's Light Cream Pods were one work amongst many. I particularly liked the mix of stories, field recordings and music on the project's webpage. I arrived too late in the day to watch the films, but had it on good authority that were worth a watch.

NORDIC (Giardini) The 'Swedish cultural canon' is a contentious topic in 2024, as a centre-right government has commissioned a report to 'define' it. I somehow doubt that The Altersea Opera would fit the bill for them - a challenging work by a Swedish artist with Cantonese roots, exploring themes of migration. I was interested in the historical references, such as a 1990s restaurant-ship that travelled from Shanghai to Gothenburg, and the Red Boat Opera Company, who's journeys aimed to popularise Cantonese Opera in the 19th century.

PHILIPPINES (Arsenale) Giant rocks with embedded brass instruments sound amongst field recordings reminiscent of a rainforest. A screen shows images of an active volcano that borders the artist's hometown - a recurring subject in his work. Mount Banahaw is central to the cultural life of Lucban, and here features in histories of revolution, religion and marching bands.

POLAND (Giardini) Live microphones invite the visitor to repeat onomatopoeias and vocalise sounds related to missiles and bombs, copying witnesses of the war in Ukraine. A sober piece that stages these sounds as if in a karaoke bar.

PORTUGAL (In town) One floor of Palazzo Franchetti is turned into a 'Creole garden', a space of resistance. Plants have been specially chosen for their symbiotic relationship, strengthening each other. The artists conceive this as a space for dialogue; next door audio episodes of the podcast The Funambulist are broadcast on a loop.

SOUTH AFRICA (Arsenale) Themes of land, water and cycles of repair are explored here. From within this fragile curtain of twigs, we hear traditional songs about rain, harvest and water divination play, mixed with interviews and situated within a rural soundscape.

ZIMBABWE (In town) 'Kududunuka' is an unravelling of ideas over time. Amongst percussive and traditional music, sculptures made of plastic waste hang in a terrifying reminder of our neverending consumption.

Some favourite works not mentioned above: the Holy See pavilion (in an active women's penitentiary, apply for a ticket far in advance!), Ocean Space (participatory sound works by Indigenous Pacific practitioners), the Estonian pavilion (monumental sculpture in an ancient women's refuge), 'Your Ghosts Are Mine' (tens of Middle Eastern films with daily screenings), Bouchra Khalili's Mapping Project (migrants describe unthinkable journeys in an emotive video display at Arsenale), Alessandra Ferrini's Gaddafi in Rome (doc exposing sham decolonising practices in the Central Pavilion) and the Croatian pavilion (paper-based artworks that travelled to Venice in the luggage of visitors).

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Sound at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022)

I'm afraid this years' collating of works relating to sound and listening will be an emergency run through as I only have a couple of days here unfortunately. Hoping for a longer stay and more comprehensive blog next time!

BRAZIL

Was all ears, literally. We entered through one. A strange red fabric balloon greeted us, then dramatically began to expand, and expand, until it filled the whole room and visitors had to run away or risk being crushed into the walls. Artist Jonathas de Andrade explores idioms related to the body. A fun experience.

AUSTRALIA

A 200-day performance by Marco Fusinato.

FRANCE

Not all related to sound, yet a turntable spins in the corner and attention to the sonic feels very present. A gorgeous, theatrical, sound-full, cinematic installation by Zineb Sedira. The work is about 'the drive to make militant films in the 1960s and ’70s', considering her historical ties to France, Algeria and the UK.

GREAT BRITAIN The winner of the Golden Lion this year, Sonia Boyce presents 'Feeling Her Way'. On entering the pavilion, up the grand neo-classical staircase, we're met with a large video installation, which then continues in every room. Women of colour, singing - improvising, together - solo. A wall of memorabilia, crowdsourced, honouring female black and brown musicians. Important work, and a wonderful archive. I wish I loved it. But why are these on-screen singers in Abbey Road studios, perhaps the most expensive and exclusive studios in the world? What's all the gold and glitz about? The politics of the work feels unresolved to me.

PHILIPPINES

A chant from the Cordillera region, translated into musical notation by the artist Gerardo Tan painting with squid ink on his tongue.

UZBEKISTAN

Abror Zufarov and Charli Tapp present a sleekly designed space with an evolving sound installation, in homage to the work of scientist Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (an anagram of his Latin-translated name gave us 'algorithm') and highlighting contributions towards technological developments from outside the West.

BELGIUM

Francis Alyss shows us children playing, utterly delightful in their games and calls. In this one, children are calling in a tone that mosquitoes are sensitive towards - they adjust their wingbeats to harmonise with the kids. Happily, Alyss has made all these videos available here.

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Sound at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019)

Thoughts and (sometimes moving) images about sound works I encountered at the main bases and across the city. Aiming to create a guide for those interested in sound and travelling to the Biennale, or a window for those who aren't.

In case you haven’t been before, it’s helpful to understand the layout of the Venice Biennale. Established in 1895, it’s open May-October and involves countries from every continent. Each participating country has a pavilion at one of the two main sites, Giardini and Arsenale, or in a space in the City, usually occupied by one artist or artist collective chosen to represent the nation. There are also two huge exhibitions, one at each main site.

The title for the exhibition this year is ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’, curated by Ralf Rugoff; the artists selected to exhibit have works at both sites. I’ll let Ralf describe the theme himself, if you’d care to read below :)

Lithuania

The Golden Lion (for National Participation) this year was won by Lithuania. Three artists, one of whom is London College of Communication BA Sound Arts grad Lina Lapelyte. As a graduate of the same course, this makes the whole Venice Biennale experience somehow more tangible for me, more understandable. The artists are not all elite, ethereal and elusive. I’ve seen Lina around. A real person. A sound person! I find this very heartening. Congrats to Lina and colleagues Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdziukaite.

As the recipient of the main Biennale prize, the queues to get in to see the performance (which has been cut from a daily event to a twice weekly happening due to lack of funds), were impossible, so we’ll have to each make our own views based on the press materials out there. If you’re planning a visit, performances are on Wednesdays and Saturdays - and by 11am on Saturday, there was a 2 hour line for entry.

Mongolia

Down an alleyway in Castello district, an entrance beckons with strange sounds. Electronic musician Carsten Nicolai has composed some sounds to accompany recordings of Mongolian throat singers. Artist Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar has created some sculptural works – the exposed stone walls and red lighting makes the experience enjoyable and reasonably convincing, though I spent a while trying to work out how the sound was interactive, as the description claims. I couldn’t find how my presence was influencing the audio, but perhaps there were some less obvious devices or conceptual elements here I missed. Maybe the video will give you a sense of the space.

New Zealand

Though the elements of NZ’s offering may not be all new and shiny, this exhibit was one of my favourite experiences. The artist makes a list of all things extinct. The list is being printed - but it’ll take the whole 6 months of the Biennale for the printer to do so. The paper of the list folds out beautifully onto the floor of the pavilion.

Outside, artificial trees read through the list in AI voices. Moving your phone near the trees connects you to a WiFi network that allows you to temporarily view a page with the full list in pleasing categories - ‘things that have melted’, ‘lost lunar samples’, ‘cured diseases’, ‘discontinued burial techniques’. The names of the categories are the major selling point of the artwork for me. You can click on each list to have the AI voice read it’s contents to you in the usual machine multi-tones.

Of course there’s questions to raise: how is the female AI voice interrogated, how can the list be more than a remembrance ceremony, how conscious of resources was the artist in making the work if concerned with ecology, etc. But overall, I enjoyed this project and could have spent the whole afternoon listening to lists in this beautiful garden overlooking the sea.

Giardini

Spain

The first Pavilion I walked into belonged to Spain. I'd read an e-flux announcement about the work, so had some context - helpful given a lack of obvious wall texts and sparseness of the space. You could hear heavy breathing - you could see a video of two people exhaling into mics.

Itziar Okariz and Sergio Prego are thinking about performance and objecthood. They have whispered conversations with inanimate objects, asking us to consider the subjectivity of our relationship with space, and art as material.

Writings about the work quote Susan Sontag's The Aesthetics of Silence: “not only does silence exist in a world full of speech and other sounds, but any given silence has its identity as a stretch of time being perforated by sound.” 

Belgium

My first impression of this pavilion - creepy automated dolls. Some enact trades, others play instruments - it smells like folklore. The Venice Insider describes this spectacle as ‘a society that is folded in on itself where tradition is erected as a refuge.’

The Biennale’s jury, in awarding the pavilion with a Special Mention, state ‘Unsparing in its humour, the Belgian Pavilion offered an alternative view of the under-recognised aspects of social relations across Europe.’

There’s a website with a mass of videos that form an online aspect of the exhibition - I won't give spoilers, have a play.

Japan

Cosmo-Eggs is the title. There's an inflatable orange blow up bench that extends through the two floors of the pavilion. We're taken through myths relating to the Earth's formation, there's a running theme of ecology. Self-playing recorders were dotted around, I wasn't able to understand why.

The Singapore pavilion also used recorders - a democratic instrument through it's cheapness and accessibility?

France

Billed as controversial, reviews implied polarised opinion about Laure Prouvost’s work. You enter the pavilion through t's basement, are handed a paper mask and walk through a sculptural entrance chamber to find a film, which loosely follows 12 characters as they travel around France.

If you’ve seen some of her films, you’ll recognise the recurring elements - fish, raspberries, mobiles, breasts. Prouvost’s voice guides you through the film in it’s usual intimate and meandering way. I enjoy her voice. I enjoyed the film. I didn’t see why or where the controversy could be - if you like her work, you’ll like this pavilion, then again, if you’ve experienced her work before, there’s no major stylistic or thematic surprises in store for you. I found it charming and full of life. Other than the poor fish, which are clearly deceased. :(

Germany

The first thing you notice is that the pavilion appears closed. Why? Critical of how the EU is handling refugees, the artist states that the pavilion is now an immigration detention center. The space was problematic from the start - the pavilion is monumental and temple-like, redesigned by the Nazis in 1938.

There’s a number of works on display - which the artist (for this period named Natascha Süder Happelmann) made in collaboration with others from varied disciplines. There’s sculpture, video and sound. The media is programmed to overlap, with pieces interrupting each other or leaving confusing silences. The speakers whistle - in tribute to a common method migrants use to warn each other of immigration police approaching.

Some notes of interest about the artist: they have changed their name for the exhibition; they have purposefully conflicting info about their age and place of birth online; they hid their face in a stone mask during the press view and had an actor speak on their behalf.

Videos and more on the Deutscher Pavillon website.

Kemang Wa Lehulere, Flaming Doors, 2018

Symbolism of childhood and education - the speakers emit songs in Xhosa, traditional for ‘coming-of-age’ ceremonies. The work references police brutality in South Africa and ongoing protests calling for the decolonising of school curriculums.

Arsenale

Turkey

The texts say this is a work about collective displacement, and reference Hannah Arendt's ‘We Refugees’. I missed that entirely when viewing the work, but even without concept (I say 'even' as I am a big fan of concepts) I enjoyed this work. It’s playful - videos are projected at odd angles, you walk up ramps and into little rooms or view from a balcony above. The films show bodies, dancing in small repetitive motions, entangled in their clothes. Feet point elegantly from a neck hole. There’s a dance with the arm of jacket (like I saw in Slava’s Snowshow as a child). The air vents contain tiny sounds of waves and the sea. Impossible chairs of irregular wires are dotted around.

The artist says: "These figures are constantly changing places through the space to find their other halves. This effort is actually an attempt to reclaim their interrupted and invalidated memory and bodies."

Saudi Arabia

This hall was filled with small decorative round objects - I guessed they were made of sheep, and was informed by the cheerful person at the desk that the artist fired the leather... in a manner that I now totally can't recall. Some were wired up so if you touched them, they’d produce sound. A metallic, resonant jingling. Fun as it was to find the sound activation points, I’m unclear how the audio related to themes of returning home, as the text stated.

Singapore

Children play recorders in an experimental way - moving around a block in colourful t-shirts, looking very endearing. There’s a Fluxus feel to it - but I’d like more freedom and less choreography please. Nice posters for children’s orchestras line the walls, alongside artworks made from beautifully snipped and folded sheet music.

Neïl Beloufa, We only get the love we think we deserve, 2019

A series of interviews with soldiers from around the world, recorded via Skype; I enjoyed listening to these stories. The experience was set up as a personal encounter - you insert your head through a narrow opening in a cushioned structure to watch the video, which activates a directional speaker above you. For reasons I can’t fathom, the seating looks like an exercise bench - are we meant to be transported into a gym or training station, or have I read too much into this?

Tarek Atoui, The Spin, 2019

There’s a series of low plinths upon which objects, chosen by the artist to produce sound, are neatly arranged. Some are mechanised to play themselves - a record player with twigs for needles, a metal rod jingles in a cup. There’s a speaker and a laptop showing a patch of some sort, which I assume is operating this, and texts say that artists from a variety of disciplines have been invited in the opening month of the Biennale to experiment and create new music. It’s all very John Cage - though I think Cage would have invited the public to participate, rather than selected artists. The objects now have ‘don’t touch' signs, and sit together either silent or mechanically operated, looking frail and minimalist in their white cube home.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan

The Giardini exhibition includes the film Walled Unwalled in full. I’ve seen it twice before, but couldn’t help but watch again. It’s dense with information, but what draws me to it is the artist as narrator, guiding you through his process of listening in the specialist context of forensics. We hear from ‘ear witnesses’ as he digs through their sonic memory to recreate the audio of atrocities committed in Sednaya Military Prison in Syria.

The second work, this time at Arsenale, is This whole time there were no land mines. I’d read about this work and so was looking forward to hearing it, but could easily have overlooked it where it was situated within the show. Every few minutes one of the neighbouring artworks made a phenomenal amount of noise as a rubber hose pipe whipped around its glass cage - drawing viewers from all the other artworks towards this deafening movement. When I managed to disengage from this chaos and return to Abu Hamdan, I walked down the constructed white corridor with square screens embedded on both sides. Videos appeared, playing seemingly at random. In honesty, I didn’t find the display effective or alluring, though very interested in the subject matter. As I understand it, there’s a small corridor of land with unusual sonic properties, called 'the shouting valley'. This article in Universes gives a concise description:

In this work Abu Hamdan uses found mobile phone footage and audio recordings that were made in 2011 in The Golan Heights. This stretch of land was annexed from Syria by Israel after the 1967 ceasefire and hosts ‘the shouting valley’ — a place where the topography facilitates an acoustic leak across the border. Here separated families have regularly gathered on both sides of the divide to shout across to each other.

VIDEO CLIP HERE Tumblr only allows 10 embeds :(

Hito Steyerl

Who doesn’t love Hito after How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File and In Defense of the Poor Image? Also enjoyed her text on automation for the Serpentines GUEST, GHOST, HOST: MACHINE! podcast.

But back to Venice - two works, both on multiple unusually shaped screens surrounding you. At Giardini is a work on Leonardo Da Vinci’s secret plans for a submarine for Venice. The Arsenale has this work, on the broad theme of 'the future’, which includes classic Hito comedy lines such as: 'The Future poses a 100% risk for human health'. Can't say fairer than that.

VIDEO CLIP HERE

Christian Marclay

Some drawings or maybe prints at the Giardini venue, didn’t catch my eye, and this film at Arsenale. I’d seen it previously at White Cube Mason's Yard; it’s title says it all - 48 videos (with sound) layered on top of each other, playing simultaneously. Interesting, but much harder viewing and not at all as absorbing as The Clock.

VIDEO CLIP HERE

Shilpa Gupta, For, in your tongue, I cannot fit, 2017-2018

100 microphones re-wired as speakers, suspended from the ceiling. 100 spikes from the floor to waist height, with poems on paper impaled on each. The microphones whisper as you weave between them - the words of poets who have been imprisoned for their writing. This both looked and sounded beautiful, intimate and very moving. Perhaps my favourite work this year.

VIDEO CLIP HERE

That's it for my reflections on sound works at the 58th Venice Biennale. I'd love to hear any comments from others interested in sound - tweet me @SoundArtHannah.

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Sound at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017)

Guide to sonic works in the 57th edition of this international art exhibition. Titled VIVA ARTE VIVA and curated by Christine Macel, chief curator of Paris's Centre Pompidou, La Biennale di Venezia is open from May-November 2017.

Couldn't help but put a few other non sound things in here too…

This years Golden Lion winner is the German pavilion - artist Anne Imhof has choreographed an epic performance, between five and seven hours in length and ever changing, where you walk on a glass floor with millennials trapped underneath. During my visit they threw themselves against the floor, dejectedly hosed down the glass separating us from the performers, one escaped and climbed the imposing fence outside… An extremely bleak view.

The French pavilion for the Venice Biennale has been transformed by Xavier Veilhan and the pavilion’s curators, Christian Marclay and Lionel Bovier, into a musical space in which professional musicians from all over the world work throughout the duration of the exhibition. The producer shuffled around inside the fishbowl studio whilst I was there - not much sound coming out and it all felt a bit insanely privileged - massive money music studio being a far cry from what most of us work with, and who knows where the results of what the musicians have created will go.

Lots of cool things in the Korean pavilion. My fav was a small room full of clocks, all set at different speeds. Voices that seem to come from behind the clocks tell you how long it takes each person, name and profession inscribed on the clock, to earn a meal.

Not entirely sure what was happening in the Russian pavilion - dark, light, space, projections, subterranean lair with an app that makes naked figures appear… Lable says 'Baudrillard's silent majority, intimidated by power and terrorists'. I can hear eerie voices and mechanical hiss.

Radical act in the Canadian pavilion - most of roof gone and water spurting everywhere. Got wet listening to lovely sounds of water chiming and enjoyed watching visitors hop around to avoid new streams.

In the Greek pavilion - how much of this is real? I'll never know. Strange videos of scientists with ethics under question. Guided round a maze by eerie recorded voices. Either I'm a genius or it wasn't a real maze though as walked straight through it, no wrong turns.

Arsenale

Drumming the water - reviving the tradition with locals of the Atrato river, a work by Marcos Avila Forero. Really nice thoughtful film, about how we lose our traditions and history through globalisation. Showed a seemly futile struggle as locals attempt to revive tradition of drumming with water with varying degrees of managing to keep in time between bursts of annoyance and disheartenment. Nice community spirit came through.

Moves like an insect, slowly creeping across the wall. A music box plays the wallpaper, transforming visual motifs into sounds. A work by a Anri Sala.

Audio cassettes made for women by religious leaders, to tell them how they should act. Visually impactful - the array of tapes is fitted to the wall on bread dishes to spell out poignant words in Arabic - 'temptation', 'forbidden', 'struggle'. Saudi artist Maha Malluh says that she doesn't create new objects, believing that the world has already produced enough, many of which are discarded.

The city plays itself. No humans required as Nevin Aladag leaves instruments to create sound by themselves. Artist dealing with re-appropriation of public space and sound creation, setting the city up to become the voice of it's absent inhabitants.

Always interested in broken pianos and all they symbolise… Small man with axe destroys piano amongst other things in Liliana Porter's work.

Enjoyed this activist performance work - shouting messages across the city about public vs private space, home, and freedom to wander. Pavilion transformed into a moving stage. In defence of nomadism - collective actions in the Spanish pavilion.

In town

Murmuri - a work by Eva Ariza in the Andorra pavillion.

Investigating the boom of the 'charity single' as a symbol of globalisation of pop music and rise of 'neo liberalist aspirations'.' Songs for Disaster Relief sound lounge by Samson Young in the Hong Kong pavilion.

Five artists collaborate through image, film, sculpture and sound to question the future of Mongolia.

Deeply moving work - my favourite of the Biennale. Artist subjects himself to limits of endurance through 'one year performances'. In the first, he clocks on to a worker's time clock every hour, day and night, for one year. In the second, he takes no shelter - spending a year outdoors. Heartbreaking film accompanying the relics of these performances showing his treatment whilst sleeping outdoors, including as police force him indoors whilst under arrest. I shed a tear.

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Sound at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015)

This is my 5th trip to the Biennale di Venezia, hunting for signs of sound. Happily, with every returning visit there seem to be more and more sonic interventions, and this year sound feels embedded throughout.

It's interesting to notice recurring themes that seem to crop up throughout the mass of works from all over the globe. The 54th Biennale featured an unusal amount of glitter balls; at the 55th I saw alot of ladders. Is this coincidental or symbolic?

At the 55th Biennale, sound art had a very visible presence - making a statement. This year, sound was dotted around… part of a whole… contributing not dominating. I must admit, for a sound art fanatic like me, this was a little dissapointing.

If you've never been to the Biennale, here's the set up:

The whole of Venice is taken over by art. In May, the super rich arrive in their super yachts for the press view - revolting displays of wealth allowed by the sad corruption of the officials. As they descend their mega boats to admire the magic of the arts, the magic of the city is destroyed as views of the sea are blocked by their obscenely huge yachts and the sinking city sinks further.

This year, the Biennale was curated by Okwui Enwezor, important partly because of his role as Artistic Director of Documenta 11, where he enacted his committment to supporting developing countries to present work on the world art stage.

The Biennale takes place in two main venues - the Giardini (gardens) and the Arsenale (old naval base), but throughout the city every gallery, church and empty building houses a treasure hunt of satellite exhibitions. It takes at least 5 x 8 hour days to see the whole lot, and you're exhausted by the end, but it's THE PLACE to be excited and inspired.

In the below, I've documented all the sound works I found, in an attempt to share the experience.

Giardini

Nordic Pavillion

The glass armonica - thought to induce states of ecstasy and arouse sexual excitement'.

Venezuela

'Words are sound, sign & image that join our memory & lit rememberances of path through life'

France

Trees that generate harmonies with low-voltage electric current.

Not sure where I am now, but I have accidentally become a performer in a reading rehearsal...

Poland

In the Polish Pavilion, two artists 'revisit Herzog's mad idea' [to] bring opera to the tropics.

Spain

'Stepping into this piece requires an unbalanced perspective' - microphones dangle in Pepo Salazar's work.

Arsenale

Terry Adkins' sculptural forms from instruments at Arsenale.

Chanting and mysterious sine tones in My Epidemic (Small Bad Blood Opera) by Lili Reynaud Dewar

Ayoung Kim haunting sound work with diagrams

Bells gently tingling in the fields... Christian Boltanski

Various unused pianos in separate works - bourgeois symbol?

Mexico

Deceptive rumblings of rain from behind the steel walls.

Slovenia

'The violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope'

IILA-Latin American Pavilion

Sounds of Amerindian languages threatened with extinction.

Satelite exhibitions

Hong Kong

'Are we not straying through an infinite nothing?' sound environment

Listening to paintings at Brian Eno and Beezy Baily's exhibition.

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Sound at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013)

A little collection of sounding things I encountered...

Epic sound installation at the Polish pavilion in Giardini by Konrad Smoleński, titled Everything Was Forever, Until it Was No More. A huge bell, a stacked soundsytem. Some performances too!

The SS Hangover - I was lucky to catch this gorgeous fishing boat sailing off from Arsenale with a melancholic brass band on board. A project by Ragnar Kjartansson.

Ok, this is very video, but I loved this - moving, haunting, affecting sound in Richard Mosse's The Enclave, in the Irish Pavillion in town.

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Sandbox

Modus Arts presents Sandbox - a space for sound artists to share and experiment with their practice. Join us at The Hub, Bernie Grant Arts Centre from 7 - 9pm.

On Monday 18th March we welcome Joe Banks to present "Rorschach Audio – Art & Illusion for Sound".

Joe Banks is a researcher and sound artist, and founder of the pioneering sonic and visual arts project Disinformation. Initially concerned with exploring the creative potential of noise produced by electromagnetic (radio) phenomena, Disinformation was founded by Joe in 1995. Joe’s early research resulted in the production of CDs, LPs, compilation tracks, gallery installations and performances etc, which focussed on VLF and shortwave radio noise, produced by live mains electricity, trains and metro systems, information technology hardware, electric storms and even the sun. These interests led to research into the psychology of interpretation of broadcast voices, and to the initiation in 1999 of the psychoacoustics research project “Rorschach Audio”. From 2007 to 2012 “Rorschach Audio” research was funded by the AHRC and hosted by Goldsmiths College and the University of Westminster, resulting in the publication of the book "Rorschach Audio – Art & Illusion for Sound". Joe has to date delivered 50 public "Rorschach Audio" lecture-demonstrations (most recently at Chisenhale Gallery in November 2018).

Facilitated by Annie Goh and Wajid Yaseen.

Sandbox is a regular, informal space where leading sound practitioners share their work, meet other sound artists in London.

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John Cage "As Slow As Possible" Performance Changes Chords For The First Time In Two Years

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Sound Arguments 2024 @Orpheus_Inst Feb 26 - Jun 26 2024 | Ghent & The Hague Sound Arguments is an innovative laboratory-atelier for creative artists and researchers dealing with sound. Presented by the Orpheus Institute, Ghent (BE), and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, University of Leiden (NL), Sound Arguments transcends the boundaries of art school or conservatory, art space or university to propose a new kind of creating-researching-learning community. It reaches into the broad and complex space of current art-sound practices. At Sound Arguments, participants will share, invent, learn and discuss. Speakers include: @soundwords_sv, @SWaveCollective @Lisa_R_Hall @SoundArtHannah (me!) @voicesoundtext Read more: http://tinyurl.com/yhyaaup3

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The Sonorities 2024 programme is now live. https://sonorities.net Sonorities will run from Monday 8th to Saturday 13th of April. The programme includes 41 events in locations across Belfast featuring 98 acts from over 20 countries.

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The Le Son 7 exhibition in New York, from the 9th to the 14th January 2024.

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Celebrate the launch of a new book by Ella Finer...

To mark the publication of their book Silent Whale Letters — a long distance correspondence project responding to a ‘silent’ archival recording — Ella Finer and Vibeke Mascini return to Delfina Foundation where the project began in early 2020, to read from the letters in conversation with poet Lucy Mercer.

An experiment in listening to frequencies beyond human sensorial range, Silent Whale Letters is a correspondence intimately attuned to the infravoice of a blue whale, a recording held in the British Library’s sound archive, and other so-called ‘silent’ subjects. 

Published by Sternberg, with TBA-21 Academy and Sylvia, and edited by Kate Briggs, the book moves through three years of correspondence described as “a joint meditation on the transformative potential of a note, a voice, carried from saltwater into the archive” (Rebecca Giggs, author).

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Kasha Potrohosh: Springformance Music performance  Exhibition at tranzit sk 18th May 2023, 6:30 p.m.

As part of the Listening to the waterfalls of the sun exhibition, Kasha Potrohosh, whose works range from photo through painting to performance, will present her latest sonic research in the small garden at Beskydská 12. Instruments made out of natural materials, created through an intuitive process will be played by the artist through the usage of a contact microphone, accompanied by her singing and voice overs. Field recordings from the forests of Bratislava and Ostrava will also be mixed in to create a calm, healing sound. The performance strives to be a sonic experiment, a concert and a meditation inviting listeners to open themselves up to the many “unheard” sounds of the universe.

Kasha Potrohosh is a Ukrainian artist who is currently based and studying intermedia at the AFAD in Bratislava. Her work, which focuses on intermedia, covers a broad spectrum of activities and projects. In addition to her solo work, she has been an active member of the MAPSN performance group. The topics that Kasha explores touch upon the subjective experience of gender roles, self therapy as well as reflections of broader social, feminist, environmental topics. More info here.

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Looking forward to a week of radio in the mountains - is anyone else I know going? 

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David Vélez – Beta Vulgaris

Beta Vulgaris is a composite experiment into horticultural acoustics. Based on a series of readings about the beneficial role of sound to the life, growth and well-being of plants, the album sets to document an experiment Vélez conducted in his own studio. Aiming to stimulate the growth of beet plants, Vélez started using sinewaves for a period of three months. The results, as he writes, were the…