BANDWIDTH RESIDENCY
Between the 7th and 17th of July 2019, 10 artists gathered at the Blue House in Șona village, Brașov, for the first edition of the Sounds Like a Book residency. Focused on the intersection of sound and book as means for artistic expression, they set out to create an artist’s book inspired by either a mental image, or the sounds produced and recorded during the residency. Building on the experience of previous Sounds Like a Book editions, which included workshops and talks held in Bucharest (RO), the Bandwidth residency also offered two workshops and a series of lectures held by artists working with sound art and graphic design.
The artists in residence worked alongside Lukas Jakob Löcker, an Austrian sound artist, and the design studio Graphomat. They also met Gabriel Barbu, a graphic designer, Simina Oprescu, a sound artist, and Mihai Șovăială, a visual artist.
Simina introduced the participants to acousmatic composition techniques, Gabriel shared the process of book production, and Mihai guided them through the basics of self-publishing design.
During the two workshops, one focused on sound art and the other on graphic design, held by Lukas Jakob Löcker and the Graphomat team (Andreea Popescu, Andra Pavel, Mihai Popescu) respectively , the artists developed the content and form of their books, exploring the various facets of communication; the theme of that year’s residency. Being a rich and expansive subject, communication invited diverse approaches and the integration of other media. Lukas Jakob Löcker also encouraged the artists to pursue other aspects, such as social media, obsolete mediums of communication, signal transmission, words / signs, sign / language, error, remixing.
PROJECTS
Vlad Brăteanu
speech to text guided meditation to the sea island (book) speech to the sea text to the island-guided meditation (audio)
(sound piece)
vladbrateanu.work
Just in time for the inauguration of the new communal stage of Șona, a cassette containing the recording of the classic play that will open the space was anonymously donated to the local radio station by one of the villagers. ‘The singing hills are out to get us!‘, a sci-fi musical play that explores the ‘true‘ horrors and origins of the strange mounds guarding the village from above, dubbed ‘guruiețe‘ by the locals. Collecting interviews, conspiracies and scientific theories, the project follows how their legend got distorted through time, and how the locals remember the guruiețe’s origin, all of them posessing a small fraction of their ‘actual‘ mysterious arrival, next to the village. (Lucian Barbu)
Csilla Bartus
Reflection. Repetition. Meditation…Pictures are taken every second of a stream, each photo has a changing variety and carries the signs of passage of time, constant change and Dynamism.
The sight and sound produced by the hypnotically swirling and flowing water create an environment for relaxation, where reconnection with nature and ourselves happens on another level. The presence of nature offers vitality and meditation, a sigh of relief(*except for the biological dangers that make us sick*). A play with the lengths of pages results in kinetic energy, overlapping the glitch/noise aspect of the book, as a „3D immersive viewing system/display”. Can I trick your mind into getting a similar experience as the original would give?
Alyona Ciobanu
A collection of recorded and deconstructed songs in Șona. The book is a reference to the music boxes from my childhood, or what we used to call “muzykalnaya shkatulka/ музыкальная шкатулка,” brought by my dad from his work trips abroad, which were famous back then, combined with audio-visuals from Șona. I chose to visualize what I had seen and, afterward, to imagine.
Gabriela Cozma
Imagine yourself in dim light, in the bathtub, taking a bubble bath, occasionally sipping from a glass of champagne, with Damien Rice playing softly in the background. Now, forget all of that. This publication is more like a quick, lukewarm shower instead, no rubber duck included.
Simona Dimache
Informed by the title of the art residency platform Sounds Like a Book, I explored its visual potential. The work, titled Paper Sound, evokes the core of the concept I later developed. Starting with the idea of deconstructive construction, I used my personal booknote, employing each page in the production of a different sound. These sounds were recorded during a sound performance. The pages I worked with during the performance were photographed and then reconstructed into a new object, becoming a book once more.
My work also engages the viewer through the various textures and weights of the paper. The interaction of each spectator allows for the creation of a new personal sound and image.
Veronica Gorii
It’s very common to feel stuck, both in regards to one’s artistic practice and daily life. My task was quite straightforward: to combine available surrounding sounds and places with the feeling of going in circles, of being stuck. Therefore, the soundscape has a circular/loop structure, and the content of the book, although not necessarily linear, hints at a journey.
Lera Kelemen
Sonic Mythologies and Myth Patterns is a publication which gathers regional sounds from Şona village and treats them as units in the creation of local mythology. The juxtaposition of these sonic elements (soundscapes, human voices, animals, objects & tools) becomes a polyphony that quotes Levi Strauss’ structural analysis of myths detailed in the theoretical chapter.
Maria Năstase
Recorded ambient sound from Șona is transformed into digital landscapes. Found and generated soundscapes from the village are gathered into a collage of offline and online elements of sound and landscape.
Matthias Schäfer
infields.xyz connects field recordings from a cell tower site with a printed publication. The site is located near Fãgãras, on a hill and consists of four towers sending radio and cellular signals.
To listen to the sound recordings, you need to scan the QR codes in the book.
Oana Tudoran
Forever, maybe is a poetic prose that investigates the dramatic possibilities of the mundane, and challenges the idea of a reasonable universe by putting forward a discordant, even bleak perspective on our own legitimacy. By referencing 1970s text-based computer games, the book brings to attention – and challenges – the notions of decision, action and consequence. As in the case of early RPGs, Forever, maybe introduces sound as an initial clue informing the reader/player of a new situation, thus cultivating a subtle communication between animate and inanimate. As the reader deciphers the book, they become entangled in a game of choice, an absurd one that offers no true release, no closure.
EXHIBITION
Two exhibitions showcased the multimedia artworks locally and internationally, at Galeria Posibilă in Bucharest (curated by Mihai Popescu) and Lnz, Austria, at DH5 (curated by Andreea Vladut and Lukas Jakob Löcker). Both iterations were part exhibition, part interactive, immersive installations, aiming to provide in-depth perceptive and critical viewing experiences.