This third webinar in the series will be devoted to sonic explorations of water across a variety of disciplines. From hybrid musical instruments drawing on water to the Anthropocene ocean, the session will explore the histories and aesthetic practices that connect water with sound art, listening, and bioacoustics.
Salomé Voegelin is an artist and writer engaged in listening as a socio-political practice, and working with sound’s relational knowledge capacities. She writes essays, books and text-scores for performance and publication. Books include Sonic Possible Worlds (2014/21) The Political Possibility of Sound (2018) and Listening to Noise and Silence (2010). Recently her book Sonic Possible Worlds appeared in a revised second edition, extending the discussion on the sonic possibility of the world to rethink normative constructions and fabulate a different body from its sound. Voegelin’s practice engages in participatory, collective and communal approaches. She co-convenes, with Mark Peter Wright, the regular cross-disciplinary listening and sound making event Points of Listening www.pointsoflistening.wordpress.com, and uncurates curatorial conventions to re-know the world from the connecting logic of sound. Voegelin is a Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, and currently represents the Professorship Klangkunst in den Kunstwissenschaften at the University of Art Braunschweig. www.salomevoegelin.net @soundwords_sv
Tomoko Sauvage is a Japanese musician and artist who is best known for her long-time experimentation on unique hybrid instrument combining water, ceramics, sub-aquatic amplification and electronics. Sauvage’s research is grounded in live-performance practices embracing unpredictable dynamics of materials while incorporating ritualistic yet playful gestures, improvisation with environments and the use of chance as a compositional method.
Over the past decade, Tomoko Sauvage (JP/FR) has been developing her unique electro-acoustic instrument, waterbowls – combining water, hydrophones (underwater microphones) and porcelain and glass bowls. Random percussion with water drops, hydrophonic feedback controlled by hand-undulated water waves and porous terracotta emitting singing bubbles in the liquid are some of her techniques that generate sculptural and fluid timbres. Her musical experimentation is grounded in a live-performance-based practice that investigates improvisation and interaction with environment. Sauvage’s performances have been presented internationally including RIBOCA (Riga), V&A Museum (London), Manifesta (Palermo, Marseille), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), Roskilde Festival, Centre Pompidou Metz and Nyege Nyege Festival (Uganda). Her installation piece has recently been exhibited at Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE) and Galerie Chantal Crousel (Paris). Her third solo album Fischgeist was recorded in a water tank in Berlin and published by bohemian drips in 2020. She lives and works in Paris since 2003.
Sebastian Schwesinger is a Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer in Media and Cultural History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. He studied Cultural History and Theory, Musicology, Philosophy, and Microeconomics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and FOM University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on sonic media cultures and the history of acoustics. He is a co-founder of the Berlin research network on sonic thinking. Selected publications: Simulating the Ancient World. Pitfalls and Opportunities of UsingGame Engines for Archaeological and Historical Research (2020, coauthor), Navigating Noise (2017, co-editor).