Stepping out: installation

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Stanier Black-Five has created Stepping Out, an installation injecting the noise of daily life back into the earthquake ravaged CBD of Christchurch, New Zealand. Situated under a walkway, it reflects the sounds of a busy city back onto a once bustling central thoroughfare. As people increasingly return to the street the installation will gradually disappear into the clamour of a revitalised city centre..

“This work brings back the once rich sonic life of this central stretch of Colombo Street, which was once full of shoppers, travellers, revellers, cars and buses,” explains the artist of the work, which opened on Sunday 14th July under the walkway linking the reopened Ballantynes store with the abandoned The Crossing Centre. “The installation is created from the sounds of daily life that vanished from the area following the earthquakes.”

“However, with the reopening of the street and the rebuild of the area, these sounds will naturally return,” she notes. “They will merge with the installation, which will effectively be erased when the area returns to its former levels of noisy activity.”

The installation is ongoing over the coming months and is situated under the bridge in the block between Cashel & Lichfield Streets in the Christchurch CBD.

Arts on Sunday Radio NZ interview

Stanier Black-Five (Jo Burzynska) was interviewed about her Oenosthesia Sound and Wine project on Radio New Zealand’s prestigious Arts on Sunday programme – 14.07.13.

Oenosthesia in New Zealand

Oenosthesia is a ground breaking interactive exploration of sound and taste created by sound artist and wine writer, Jo Burzynska (aka Stanier Black-Five). This soundscape using her recordings of the vineyards and wineries of Irpinia in Italy, explores the significant way that sound influences the perception of taste through the combination of the changing timbres and frequencies in the piece with a selection of different wines from the region.

The work was created last year during Stanier Black-Five’s residency in Southern Italy, and is possibly the first piece of gustatory/sound art created both from and including wine. It was premiered at the Interferenze New Art Festival’s Factory of Art Rurality and Media 2012 (FARM2012) in Tufo, Italy and this programme is the first time the installation has been presented in New Zealand.

As a prelude to the evening, there will be a showing of “FARM – Factory of Art, Rurality and (New) Media”, directed by Interferenze Director, Leandro Pisano. This short film documents Stanier Black-Five’s project and the “Suoni dal confine” residency programme of which it was part, in which international artists were invited to embrace rurality in the creation of works of sonic art in the Italian countryside. She will then personally introduce the project, her own theories and the science of sensory interaction before those attending experience Oenosthesia. The installation lasts 25 minutes and includes tasting of three wines from Irpinia.

As well as working as a sound artist, Jo Burzynska is also one of New Zealand’s leading wine critics, writing a weekly wine column in the New Zealand Herald’s Viva magazine, as well as contributing to specialist wine publications worldwide. In recent years she has been exploring the synergies between taste and sound through her own research and hosting music and wine matching workshops. More information about Burzynska’s wine writing can be found at joburzynska.com

Oenosthesia is being presented at:

Audio Foundation, Friday July 19th, $10, 6.30 pm – booking essential

Physics Room, Saturday July 20th, Free, 6pm – booking advised

With thanks to Irpinia’s regional consortium of GAL Partenio, which sponsored the residency; Leandro Pisano for curating the residency and Terredora for providing the wines from Italy.

 

Borderline Listening Post

As part of the  Borderline Ballroom music collective, Stanier Black-Five (Jo Burzynska) has curated the Borderline Listening Post, a public sound installation in Lyttelton, New Zealand’s Civic Square. It features works contributed by local, national and international sonic artists. Some have responded directly to the space, while others have been inspired from afar to create works that range from soundscapes using the local environment as their source to electronic pieces and electroacoustic compositions.

A selection of the works were also included in the Tin Palace gallery’s “Illuminate exhibition” in June 2013.

For more information about the installation, programme and featured artists, check out the new Borderline Ballroom/Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists website.