27 October - 1 November 2015
'Chromatic Aberration' Screening as part of the Fascinations Competition at the 19th Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava, Czech Republic http://www.dokument-festival.com/
12-17 November 2015 'Chromatic Aberration' Screening as part of the International Competition at the 17th International Film Festival Bratislava, Slovakia http://www.iffbratislava.com/
1 October 2016
'Her Marks, a Measure' solo show at Fridman Gallery, New York
Exhibition opening and catalogue launch, with newly commissioned essays by Justine Ludwig, Erika Balsom and Omar Khalif Artist in conversation with Justine Ludwig 1st of Oct 5pm (addition film screenings 26th Oct and 2nd Nov 7pm) http://www.fridmangallery.com/aura-satz
28-29 October
'Kepler's Trial' An Opera by Tim Watts based on Ulinka Rublack's book 'The Astronomer & the Witch', with film elements by Aura Satz Premieres at St John's College, Cambridge http://keplers-trial.com/
10-20 November 2016 'Where there is Sea, there are Pirates / The Imagination is a Political Act', group exhibition at 3137 gallery, Athens http://www.3137.gr/pirates
13 April - 27 August 2017 'As Above, So below: Portals, Visions, Spirits & Mystics', group exhibition at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin http://www.imma.ie/en/page_237202.htm
3-14 October 2018 'Entangled Nightvisions' shortlisted for Les Nouveaux Alchimistes competition at Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC), Montreal http://www.nouveaucinema.ca/en/
Wed 23 Jan 2019
Slow Looking at Art, broadcast on BBC radio 3s 'Free Thinking' Ways of
Seeing with artists Michael Craig-Martin & Aura Satz, scientist Daniel Glaser and art writer Kelly Grovier. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00023jf
8th March 2019
To coincide with International Women's day, Jo Hutton and Louise Gray are
joined by Fari Bradley, Aura Satz and Beatriz Ferreyra discussing women’s
place in the history of electroacoustic music, Resonance FM
https://www.resonancefm.com/schedule/2019-03-08
24 Feb - 1 March 2021 Visiting artist in residence, School of Arts Institute of Chicago, including artist talks and film screenings http://www.saic.edu/cate
15 Sep - 28 Nov 2021 'Aboard my floating house' 10e Triennale d’art contemporain, le Centre culturel d’Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium https://www.magmatriennale10.be/
16-17 March 2022 'Preemptive Listening' talk and screening as part of 'Ages of Receivership: On Generous Listening' at Institute Art Gender Nature, FHNW, Academy of Art and Design in Basel on site and online. With Caroline Bergvall, Merve Yesilada Caglar, Bill Dietz, Nina Emge, Jazmina Figueroa, Virna Gulzari, Ayesha Hameed, Kate Lacey, Nour Mobarak, Dylan Robinson, Aura Satz, Stas Sharifullin, Li Tavor & Nicolas Buzzi, and Hannah Weinberger. Moderated by
Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer. Research associate: Marion Ritzmann. https://www.artandeducation.net/announcements/451535/ages-of-receivership-on-generous-listening https://dertank.ch/en/we-explore/gender/#ages-of-receivership
19 June 2022 'The Grief Interval' screening as part of The London Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF), Woolwich Works https://lcmf.co.uk/
24 July 2022 'Rock Talk: A conversation towards Geologic Listening: A conversation with Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar, Sukhdev Sandhu, Aura Satz, Cauleen Smith & Deborah Stratman', Union Docs, NY https://uniondocs.org/event/2022-07-24-rock-talk/
15 Nov 2022 'Quantum Listening' Ignota book and prints launch at Reference Point, London, with artist Aura Satz, curator and writer Irene Revell and NTS creative director Tabitha Thorlu-Bangura, hosted by Ignota’s Sarah Shin and Susanna Davies-Crook https://ignota.org/products/quantum-listening-launch
7 Dec 2022 Screening 'The Future Waters of the Storm Surge' (2022) at Kino Moviemento, Berlin as part of Kontraklang. Films and music by Olivia Block, Gunilla Sköld Feiler & Dror Feiler, Martin Grütter & Aron Kitzig, Christian Kesten, Patricia Martínez & Luis Paris, Makiko Nishikaze, Michiko Ogawa & Manuel Pessoa de Lima, Lis Rhodes, Julia Rommel, Aura Satz & BJ Nilsen
https://kontraklang.de/concert/movie-night-nr-2/
3-4 Feb 2023 Exhibition of 'The Trembling Line' as part of Strom festival for electronic music at Berliner Philharmoniker - including Aura Satz, Blawan, Hauschka + Kai Angermann, Juan Atkins, MARCEL DETTMANN, Nidia, Studio Robert Henke pres. CBM 8032 AV, transformed acoustix (members of Berliner Philharmoniker + Simon Stockhausen), Stefan Goldmann, upsammy, Wolfgang Voigt pres. GAS https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/strom/
August 2023 - October 2024, Her Luminous Distance' on display as part of permanent collection, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2017.56
Artist page on the website of The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music: thewire.co.uk to accompany the cross-platform feature on my work in the September 2010 issue:
An excerpt of the filmic installation 'Sound Seam' thewire.co.uk
An excerpt of 'Automamusic' thewire.co.uk
An excerpt of 'Oramics: Atlantis Anew', thewire.co.uk
An excerpt of 'Vocal Flame', thewire.co.uk
Short film on the Theremin virtuosa Lydia Kavina, thewire.co.uk
Listen to an excerpt of 'Dial Tone Drone' on thewire.co.uk
Excerpt of 'The Trembling Line' on thewire.co.uk
Aura Satz explores ghostly presence and illusions through performance and sound, often focussed on unusual sonic devices, early musical instruments and automata. This new commission explores acoustic illusions and plays on the vocal quality of non-human instruments. It merges the musical concept of 'glissando' (the gliding or sliding from one note to another), and the idea of 'glossolalia' (religious speaking in tongues, or fluent unintelligible utterances).
The commission took form through a research and development period within the upper space of Beaconsfield Gallery, in response to the haunting resonance of the space. Over a six-week period of recording sessions and site-specific sound-editing, Aura invited various musicians to respond in the manner of Chinese whispers to an initial composition based on the acoustic illusion of the Shepard scale, consisting of endlessly escalating or descending compositions. Developed in dialogue with musician Aleks Kolkowski, the score's starting point is a series of vintage test-tone recordings, which are then layered with the various components: a musical saw (Aleks Kolkowski), a theremin (Lydia Kavina) and a female Barbershop Quartet (Hunky Dory). By drawing on such a range of sound sources, references to classic perceptual illusions degenerate into a more compositional image, from swirling rising tones to coiling disembodied voices and patterned harmonies.
Orchestrated as a dynamic vortex, the resulting recording plays back as a multi-channel soundtrack installation. The public face of the project will kick-off with a spiral sound performance on the opening night, conceived of as a dialogue between the installation and the live ensemble. Featuring the same components which fed into the recording process, in addition to the theremin and barbershop quartet there will be a whirling musical saw duet on a rotating turntable.
Soundtrap is Beaconsfield's annual portfolio scheme for new sonic works. Aura Satz is supported by an Artsadmin artist bursary. The artist's collaboration with Aleks Kolkowski is supported by NAN artists collaborations.
Monday 14th July 3-4pm & Friday 18th July 8-9pm
Glissolalia features on a clear spot on Resonance FM
The broadcast includes Aura Satz in conversation with Richard Thomas; Professor Steven Connor (Academic Director of the London Consortium) responding to the resonance of the installation Glissolalia at Beaconsfield (a transcript is available online: www.stevenconnor.com/resonance); and Hillel Schwartz (cultural historian and visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego) reading an excerpt on Echo from his forthcoming book, A Cultural History of Noise.
Aura Satz is an artist and writer. She completed a theory/practice PhD at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2002, where she later held a Henry Moore Foundation Post-doctoral Sculpture Fellowship (2002-04). She has performed, exhibited and screened her work nationally and internationally, including at FACT (Liverpool), Site Gallery (Sheffield), Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea di Trento (Italy), De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill-on-Sea), the Zentrum Paul Klee (Switzerland), Whitechapel Gallery, the V&A, The Photographer's Gallery, Tate Britain (London). She currently has another solo exhibition at Artprojx Space. Since 2004 she has been a fellow at the London Consortium.
Aleks Kolkowski studied Music at London University, violin with Clarence Myerscough at the Royal Academy of Music, was taught piano by John Tilbury, electronic music by Hugh Davies and in 1982 participated in seminars and performances directed by John Cage. Over the past 25 years he has worked internationally as an improvising violinist, interpreter, solo performer and composer for dance, theatre and film. His latest work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction to make live mechanical-acoustic music. He is a founder of Recording Angels.
Léon Theremin's grand-niece, Lydia Kavina was born in Moscow and began studying the theremin under the direction of Theremin himself when she was nine years old. Since then, her musical career has included more than a thousand concerts and theatre, radio and television performances around the world, as well as film soundtracks (Ed Wood, eXistenZ and The Machinist) and her own compositions. Kavina is an active promoter of new experimental music for the theremin. www.lydiakavina.com
Hunky Dory Quartet are Jackie Driscoll, Lolly Thomas, Ceejai Seaman, and Barbara Thompson.
Beaconsfield specialises in encouraging artists to pursue projects of ambition and has a long track record of commissioning and promoting experimental contemporary art, at home and abroad. Co-curated by artists David Crawforth and Naomi Siderfin since 1994, examples of previous sound projects include the ground-breaking Rude Mechanic, (1996), Carl Michael von Hausswolff's first UK solo show (2005), Soundtrap commissions with Daniel Figgis and Leafcutter John and the popular event series Mother of all Parties (2005-08) which echoes themes of the legendary Nosepaint club, run by the Beaconsfield curatorial team during the early nineties.
WITH SUPPORT IN KIND FROM WHARFEDALE
AURA WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK JON MAISEY AND MICK RITCHIE.
