A performance with live vocals by Viv Corringham, manipulated and distributed by Paul Geluso within the installation “Nostalgia for the Here and Now”. Viv will sing responses written by exhibition visitors to her questions “What sound would you most miss if it disappeared tomorrow” and “What object do you most value?”. Her singing will blend with field recordings in a 3D sound environment.
October 29th, 2022 @3pm.
LOCATION: Harvestworks Art and Technology Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island. INDOOR
Nostalgia for the Here and Now
Nostalgia for the Here and Now is pervasive: a feeling that what we have is unsustainable and disappearing.
This installation combines environmental sounds, spoken or sung lists of loved possessions along with objects found in the streets: an archaeological trove of relics from our present. As if someone from the future has gathered together memories of our soundscape, along with our quotidian objects, both valued and discarded, as a record of how we lived and what we cared about.
As a 70 year old person I know about nostalgia for past times and places. But I notice that nostalgia for the here and now is pervasive: a feeling that what we have is disappearing fast. Our everyday lives are lived almost as a dream, where waking up means acknowledging that our way of life may not last much longer and is in any case unsustainable.
This audio/visual installation is an archaeology of sounds and objects from this present time. It combines field-recordings of sounds from here and now with everyday found objects: a collective of relics from our present. As if someone from the future gathered together memories of how our soundscape used to be, along with our quotidian objects, both valued and discarded, as a record of how we lived and what we cared about.
My perspective in this work is to examine the small things that make up our lives, those everyday details that are important to us and through which we can glimpse the huge and overwhelming challenges that face us. I interviewed a diverse selection of the public and asked them two questions.
The first was: “What sound in your environment would you miss most if it disappeared tomorrow?”
Sound is omnipresent and represents the ecological mesh we exist in but don’t always take into account. Asking this simple question of people (including visitors to the installation) allows us to ask ourselves what are the “soundmarks” in our life and to become aware of our own part in the acoustic environment. I then recorded the environmental sounds that people names, as exactly as possible.
The second question I asked was: “What object do you most care about – something you can’t imaging living without?”
We are intimately connected to our possessions and we feel great stress when they are lost to flood, fire, migration and other familiar crises. I would like – in a small way – to provoke a reconsideration of whether we need them or not. I also collected some of the detritus of our lives – objects dropped or forgotten in the street – as traces of our existence and what was once valued but is now waste.
My photographs of found objects form the visual aspect of this installation. The audio element is my field recordings of people’s selected sounds, recorded interviews with people and my own voice chanting or singing the list of objects and sounds that they value. Much has depended on chance – what objects I found on the ground and what sounds people choose for me to record.
Thank you to everyone I interviewed: Barbara, Diane, Simon, Iris, Cassia, Marcus, Ahmet, Stephen, Dave, Marina, Sue, Nancy, Tom, Irem, Stuart, Thrace, Cathy, Kathy, Clive, Francoise, Maureen, Emil, Mum and Dad, Barry, Sheetal.
Excerpt from the performance:
BIOS
VIV CORRINGHAM is a New York based British vocalist, composer and sound artist, active since the late 1970s. Her work includes concerts, soundwalks, workshops and installations, exploring people’s sense of place and the link with personal history and memory. She has received international recognition and her work has been presented in twenty six countries on five continents.
Educational background includes an MA Sonic Art with Distinction from Middlesex University, London, England and a BA Theatre Design from Nottingham Trent University, England. She is a certified teacher of Deep Listening, having studied and worked with composer Pauline Oliveros.
Awards: She is a 2012 and 2006 McKnight Composer Fellow. Other grants and awards have come from the English and Irish Arts and Councils, Jerome Foundation, Harvestworks NY, Jazz Services UK, Millennium Funding UK, London Arts Board, Chisenhale Awards, Creative Partnerships, Awards for All and Meet the Composer.
Work has been presented in venues including Hong Kong Arts Centre, Conoteca Nacional de Mexico, Issue Project Room New York, Onassis Centre Athens, Institute of Contemporary Art London, Serralves Museum Portugal, Taipei University Taiwan, Ohrenhoch Sound Gallery Berlin, Shantou University China, Bangalore, Calcutta and Delhi universities, Ftarri Tokyo and Tempo Reale Florence.
Invited Artist Residencies include soundpocket Hong Kong; Harvestworks NYC; Srishti Bangalore; Emily Harvey Foundation Venice; Montalvo Art Centre CA; Guild Hall East Hampton NY, Memorial University Newfoundland; Cal State University; Sound Meetings Greece; Cobh Art Centre Ireland; Radio Papesse Florence; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art Portugal; NAISA Toronto; Soundworks Cork Ireland; Deep Listening Institute NY and Binaural Media Portugal.
Articles about her work have appeared in many publications, including In the Field (UK), Leonardo Music Journal (US), Walking with Scores (Belgium), Art of Immersive Soundscapes (Canada), Organised Sound (UK), Musicworks (Canada), Catskill Made (US), Playing With Words (UK) and For Those Who Have Ears (Ireland).
Recordings are available on Innova, Otoroku, Flaming Pines, Zeromoon, Farpoint, Linear Obsessional, FMR, Slowfoot, NoMansLand, ARC Music, MASH, Slam, Rhiannon, Jungle Records, Emanem, Move, Artship and Third Force.
PAUL GELUSO: Paul’s work focuses on the theoretical, practical, and artistic aspects of sound recording and reproduction. He has been credited as producer, recording engineer, mastering engineer, and/or musician on hundreds of commercially released recordings, including Grammy nominated and Latin Grammy nominated titles and award winning films. His research focusses on new ways to capture, mix, and process immersive audio for playback on multi-channel sound systems, recently co-editing “Immersive Sound: The Art And Science of Binaural and Multi-channel Audio” published by Focal Press-Routledge. He has taught classes in music production and technology at Bard College and the Peabody Institute, in addition to serving as the chief sound engineer at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts for more than 2 decades. Working with artists who use sound as a creative medium, his collaborative sound works have been exhibited at The New Museum, Art in General, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Gale Gates Et Al, Cooper-Hewitt School of Design, London’s SPACE gallery, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts, the DUMBO Arts Festival, White Box Art Gallery, New York Electronic Arts Festival, ISSUE Project Room, and NIME. He has received individual artist grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and Meet the Composer. Professor Geluso received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1988 and a Master of Music in Music Technology from New York University in 2000.
PRESS QUOTES
“Three tracks in particular are musically impressive: firstly, long, ornamented vocal notes perfectly punctuated by the incisive, stately percussion of a woodpecker’s hammering. Later, Corringham creates a chordal drone in sync with a close-up bee, accompaniment for a bird’s soliloquy. And at 3am she’s channelling an ancient crone, splitting vocal tones in some feeble but essential ritual prayer. All of this is acoustic and for real, just a singer in the woods” (review of “On the Hour in the Woods – Viv Corringham in The Wire)
PAST INTERVIEWS AND PRESS COVERAGE:
https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/an-audio-introduction-to-viv-corringham
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
http://vivcorringham.org/https://walklistencreate.org/?s=viv+corringham
