I’m waiting now at the airport to return home after an intense week in Auckland. The focus of this intensity is the installing, and then opening, of the sound installation Mundane Utopia at the Audio Foundation. The Audio Foundation is an essential centre for boundary-pushing sounds explorations located in the middle of the Auckland CBD, and holds a massive role in ongoing adventurous sound making within Aotearoa, but also holds a substantial archive of what has come before. I had the opportunity to spend a week in residence there last year and this exhibition is the follow on from that.
I have never really been involved in the gallery installation process, so learning was required on the fly, but we had days to work on it as the install evolved through various arrangements. The final layout feels organic and coherent, and remarkably simple for the amount of effort required. The opening was well attended with a lot of playful interest in the sound project.
The following day was a full performance at the Whammy Backroom. The lineup was U R A Tooth, representing the home team, two drummers duelling like collapsing stars, unrelenting and explosive, plus bass and saxophone for any portion of the eardrum left unbruised. Then my turn for the first post-Java show. A nice touch at the end of my set was a gentle game of ‘have-the-audience-kick-the snare-and-ride-around-the-dance-floor’ while I let the the synth sound disappear. Very homely. And Hōhā, from Ōtepoti/Dunedin, on third to round out the sonically dense evening. Drums, guitar and dual vocals, improvised song-forms, with the last piece being only drums and processed vocals. Superb.
On Saturday afternoon, I had the chance to present Office Ambiance back in the Audio Foundation. A seminar session hosted be MEL (the Musical Electronic Library located at AF), which gave me the chance to talk a bit about the process, thinking, and science behind my project. Some wonderful discussion followed, interesting questions, reflections, and similarities with others’ own creative projects.
And finally, on Saturday evening, I hosted a screening of the independent film Jogja Noise Bombing with a bit of Q&A at the end. I offered some thoughts on my recent opportunity to perform at JNB, as well as answer questions that curious minds wanted to ask.
Many thanks to the Audio Foundation and crew, Jeff, Sam, Tash, and all the others, for their support in making this series of events possible…couldn’t have done it without you all.
skirted Records 