[Jul 26] Alessandra Eramo: Lauter Spannung

Alessandra Eramo’s composition turns into an original and non-narrative soundtrack of a video, where new human voices fuse into a collection of field recordings of urban noises of daily life made in Berlin, Venice, Taranto, Prague and New York: one is faced to sounds that might belong to anyone. Field recordings of public spaces that contrast with the intimacy of her singing act. The composing of a new soundtrack, like re-inventing the sound of vocal performance, challenge the ephemerality of the voice, which turns into an object for the ethernity. During this process, the tension between present and absent is questioned.

[Jul 26] Alessandra Eramo: Lauter Spannung

Alessandra Eramo
Thu, Jul 26 2012, 7pm
FREE

Multi channel audiovisual installation for voice, face and field recordings
Developed at Harvestworks in July 2012

Lauter in German language means “a lot of”. This term contains also the word Laut, which means “Sound”, but means also “Loud”. Spannung means “Tension”. Sounding Tension. Or Loud Tension. Or A Lot of Tension: you are free to interpretate the title of this work as you prefer.

What is singing inside the voice? In which way the abstraction and the distortion of the voice or its substitution with a new music composition are able to generate a communicative element? When and how starts the relationship between what is written (field recordings) and what is performed (voice)?

A camera is pointed to my face. I am singing, I am speaking, but my voice cannot be heard. My voice seems muted, it seems like my face is acting in a pure mimic, grimace-like. What remains, in fact, is a singing face without voice. It remains a trace, a sign of a vocal performance that will never be heard.

The music composition turns into an original and non-narrative soundtrack of the video, where new human voices fuse into a collection of field recordings of urban noises of daily life made in Berlin, Venice, Taranto, Prague and New York: one is faced to sounds that might belong to anyone. Field recordings of public spaces that contrast with the intimacy of my singing act. The composing of a new soundtrack, like re-inventing the sound of my vocal performance, challenge the ephemerality of the voice, which turns into an object for the ethernity. During this process, the tension between present and absent is questioned.

ALESSANDRA ERAMO (1982, Taranto, Italy) is a sound artist and performer based in Berlin, working in the area of extended vocal techniques, sound-and visual poetry. Her research is mainly focused upon the interferences between Sign and Voice: writing and sign in its multiple forms, and the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument. Playing with voice, with text and field recordings, with found-objects and analogue electronics, she creates an intuitive, non-narrative musique concrète collage, investigating sound and its relationship to a territory and challenging concepts like “identity”, “intimacy/fragility”, “unexpected/unknown”, therefore the concept of “noise”.

Her works include text-sound compositions, participatory performances, videos, music for theatre and dance, installations that were exhibited and performed internationally, among others, at: International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale 2011 / Sonic Circuits Festival Washington DC / Lyd & Litterature Festival Aarhus / Festival Bandit’ Mages Bourges / Harvestworks New York / Wizytujaca Gallery Warsaw / Italian Culture Institute Stuttgart / Galerie Haus am Lützowplatz Berlin. Since 2010 she’s co-founder of the vinyl & sound art production Corvo Records in Berlin, where she has also co-released the LP ‘Popewaffen’ and her solo LP ‘Come ho imparato a volare’. She has worked and performed among others, with Gino Robair, Marta Zapparoli, Seiji Morimoto, Fred Frith, Phillip Greenlief, David Fenech.

She has trained in classical singing and piano since an early age. She studied Visual Arts and Performance at the Academy of Fine Arts Brera in Milan (Italy) and in Stuttgart (Germany). In 2006 she holds the Master Degree at the Faculty of Philosophy and Science Theory of Ca’ Foscari State University, Venice (Italy).

www.ezramo.com

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