Body Waves at Stadslimiet, Antwerp
Earthquake soundscape meets low frequency electroacoustic feedback on a black Friday!
Solo performances by Stanier Black-Five and Zeug Gezeugt followed by their Body Waves earthquake collaboration
Stadslimiet
13.09.13
Ernest van Dijckkaai 4, 2000
Antwerpen, Belgium
Stanier Black-Five will be releasing two albums on Entr’acte this month (September 2013): Avast! and Body Waves, the latter a collaboration with Zeug Gezeugt. The release coincides with the Body Waves tour of Europe.
Stanier Black-Five
Avast!
Entr’acte CD (E158)
Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural ampthitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of a major earthquake in 2011.
Stanier Black-Five & Zeug Gezeugt
Body Waves
Entr’acte CD (E157)
On 22 February 2011, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale hit Christchurch, which combined with a series of massive aftershocks destroyed huge swathes of the New Zealand city. At its epicentre in the port of Lyttelton, sound artist Jo Burzynska (Stanier
Black-Five) grabbed a recording device as she ran from her home, leaving it running on her doorstep capturing the aftershocks that ricocheted though her house and the disaster unfolding on the street outside. This unique recording of the first hour after the earthquake, as well the sounds of seismic and related phenomena of the months that followed, became the main source for Body Waves. The album is a series of three collaborative live performances made around the world with electro-acoustic performer Zeug Gezeugt, who used feedback to tune Body Waves to the unique resonant frequencies of each acoustic space in which it was performed. In this vibroacoustic environment, the audience/listeners are immersed in music that goes beyond the auditory system to be felt in the body, akin to the experience of being in an earthquake.
Global Ear — Christchurch (The Wire, January 2013)
New Zealand TV report about Body Waves
Stanier Black-Five & Zeug Gezeugt
Antwerp – Paris – Berlin – Warsaw – London
13 – 25 September 2013
New Zealand sound artists,Stanier Black-Five and Zeug Gezeugt are touring Europe this September to celebrate the release of their collaborative Body Waves album on the Entr’acte label. The album is the product of an initial series of live performances for which Stanier Black-Five created soundscapes from recordings she made at the epicentre of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, that were then transformed by Zeug Gezeugt to accentuate the lower frequency harmonics.
On their September 2013 European tour, they are proposing to make the final live international performances of Body Waves, creating a vibroacoustic environment in which the audience is immersed in a visceral music that goes beyond the auditory system to be felt in the body.
Body Waves has already attracted considerable interest both in Australasia and internationally. It was covered in the January edition of The Wire magazine and was the subject of a report on one of New Zealand’s major television channels.
Tour Dates:
13 Sep – Stadslimiet, Antwerp
16 Sep – La Miroiterie, Paris
18 Sep – NoiseAngriff, Berlin
19 Sep – Salon Bruit, Berlin
22 Sep – Kawiarnia Fawory, Warsaw
25 Sep – Club Jigoku, London
Stanier Black-Five’s tour was in part supported by:
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.
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.