Aura Satz: VENTRILOQUA & INTRASONIC

Ventriloqua

google search here — Aura Satz, Ventriloqua, 2003-4, photo Karni Arieli

Originally performed at the final stages of Aura Satz's pregnancy in 2003, 'Ventriloqua' is a video-performance of a one-off event in which the musician Anna Piva played the electromagnetic waves of her belly using a theremin. A truly literal ventriloquist act of 'belly-speaking', the artist was transformed into a musical instrument, an antenna, a medium, through which an otherworldly voice was transmitted. Like an immobile tableaux vivant or an anatomical wax model, the body became a vessel, a mouthpiece through which the disembodied voice appeared re-embodied. One body placed within another body, speaking and spoken through, producing abstract musical utterances which might predict the future, although destined to remain in an amniotic amnesia.

4 March 2004
Screening performance at FACT (Centre for Film, Art & Creative Technology) as part of
A Variety Night of Ventriloquism

With performances and talks by Ken Campbell, Andrew Hubbard, Aura Satz and Lindsay Seers.

FACT (Centre for Film, Art & Creative Technology)
88 Wood Street
Liverpool L1 4DQ
T: +44 (0)151 7074450
Email: info@fact.co.uk
www.fact.co.uk

Stills and the accompanying text of ‘Ventriloqua’ as performed at FACT (Centre for Film, Art & Creative Technology) in Liverpool (2004) feature as artist’s pages and the cover image of Performance Research, (9.3. On Generation), and was included in the touring feature film DRIFT (see below).

Ventriloqua was re-enacted in 2006 at the Freemason's Temple of the Great Eastern Hotel, in London, an exclusive evening of performance featuring Marisa Carnesky, Serena Korda, Aura Satz, Tai Shani, and Lindsay Seers.

Screened as part of DRIFT
Various UK artists, 2004-2005, Duration: 90 min
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova, Initiated and produced by New Media Scotland

Premiered as part of Black Box strand of the 58th Edinburgh International Film Festival (2004), and launch of a DRIFT booklet with programmes notes and essays by Iliyana Nedkova and Shane Danielsen, Director of Edinburgh International Film Festival. From September 2004 touring across the UK and internationally.

Screenings include British Council, Belgrade, Serbia; The Museum of Voivodina as part of 8thVideomedeja Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia; An Tuireann Arts Centre, Isle of Skye (2004-5).

A hand-picked collection of short digital films and videos by UK artists and film-makers interested in sound art, noise, acoustics and experimental music. Over 90 minutes featuring 18 films revealing the cinematic relationship of sound and image. DRIFT features artists' films and videos by Victoria Clare Bernie, Chris Bowman, Rob Kennedy, Kelly Richardson, Holger Mohaupt, Susanne Ramsenthaler, Aura Satz, Paddy Kernohan, Richard Ashrowan, Alexander Hamilton, Shannon Tofts, Simon Tricker, Peter Collis, Emily Richardson, Susan Black, Ian Helliwell, John Butler, Jayne Parker, John Carson and Michelle Deignan.

Part of DRIFT – a project established by New Media Scotland in 1999 as an ongoing exploration of sound art and experimental music, including radio broadcasts, moving image, publications and occasional live events. More information about DRIFT at www.mediascot.org/drift.

Initiated and produced by New Media Scotland, Edinburgh. Supported by the LUX, London and Edinburgh International Film Festival. Funded by the Scottish Arts Council and Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology.

10 September 2005
INTRASONIC was awarded the Special Prize at the First International Prize for Performance

Presented at the Centrale di Fies (Dro), in collaboration with the Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea di Trento, Italy, on the

Jury: Marina Abramovic (performance artist), Sabine Folie (curator of the Kunsthalle, Vienna), Renato Barilli (art critic and lecturer), Andrea Lissoni (Xing Gallery, Milan), Fabio Cavallucci (Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea, Trento) and Barbara Boninsegna (Centrale di Fies, Dro).

Intrasonic folds inwards into the body's intra-uterine space by employing a theremin, and expands outwards, as the body extricates itself from the coffin-like cavity of a grand piano.

Part 1: A musician plays the electromagnetic waves of a pregnant body using a theremin. Referencing ventriloquism, as in 'belly-speaking', the body becomes a musical instrument, an antenna, a medium, through which a pre-verbal, pre-vocal otherworldly voice is transmitted. (See above for an earlier incarnation of this project, entitled 'Ventriloqua').

Aura Satz, Intrasonic, 2005. Photo Hugo Munoz

Part 2: A performer unplucks himself free from the entangled web of the chords of a grand piano, like a frantic Houdini. The eviscerated piano is vandalised to become a labyrinthine mess of impossible sounds. The choreography and music collapse into one single act of escapology.

Aura Satz, Intrasonic, 2005. Photo Hugo Munoz

Centrale Fies
Loc. Fies 1
Dro (Trento)
Italy
Tel: 0464/504700
info@centralefies.it
www.centralefies.it

27 January 2012
'Ventriloqua' Performance with Lydia Kavina
BFI Southbank Gallery, presented as part of the Samsung Art+ prize exhibition (18-29 January)

A re-staging of Aura Satz's 'Ventriloqua' performance playing the electromagnetic waves of a pregnant body, in a fiery duet with thereminist extraordinaire Lydia Kavina. Referencing ventriloquism, as in 'belly-speaking', the body becomes a musical instrument, an antenna, a medium, through which a pre-verbal, pre-vocal otherworldly voice is transmitted. Lydia Kavina creates spectacular blazing flame-waves, using the music of the theremin to provoke the flame alphabet of a Ruben's tube. Meanwhile, acoustic shapes speak an un-codified language, using salt sound-figures on a Chladni plate.

Lydia Kavina: Born in Moscow, Lydia began studying the theremin at the age of 9 under the direction of Leon Theremin, who was cousin of her grandfather. Five years later she was ready to give her first theremin concert, which marked the beginning of her musical career that has so far led to more than a thousand concerts and theatre, radio and television performances throughout the world. Kavina recorded 3 solo CDs with original music for theremin and played for a number of film soundtracks including 'Ed Wood' and 'eXistenZ' with music by Howard Shore and 'The Machinist' by Roque Banos.

BFI Southbank
Belvedere Road London
London SE1 8XT
Tel: 020 7928 3232
www.bfi.org.uk
www.samsung.com
Free but limited capacity booking advised info@suumproject.com

Aura Satz, Ventriloqua, 2003-4, with Anna Piva, photo Karni Arieli

2 May 2012
'Ventriloqua' Performance with Dorit Chrysler, at Cabinet, NY

A re-staging of 'Ventriloqua', Aura Satz plays the electromagnetic waves of a pregnant body, in a fiery duet with thereminist extraordinaire Dorit Chrysler. Referencing ventriloquism, as in 'belly-speaking', the pregnant body becomes a musical instrument, an antenna, a medium, through which a pre-verbal, pre-vocal otherworldly voice is transmitted. Dorit Chrysler creates spectacular blazing flame-waves, using the music of the theremin to provoke the flame alphabet of a Ruben's tube. Meanwhile, acoustic shapes speak an un-codified language, using salt sound-figures on a Chladni plate.

Austrian-born thereminist Dorit Chrysler is hailed as one of the world's most accomplished theremin players. Dorit Chrysler is also the founder of the New York Theremin Society. She has performed at the Lincoln Center, Vienna Konzerthaus, World Trade Center, Palais Tokyo, the Sibelius Academy, the LA Disney Hall and the Moderne Kunstmuseet in Stockholm, and collaborated with Anders Trentemoeller, Elliot Sharp, Marilyn Manson, Lee Hazelwood, Cluster, Gibby Haynes, JG Thirlwell and Lene Lovich. She has scored for short movies and TV and her compositions for artist Jesper Just are part of permanent collections at the MOMA and the Guggenheim.

Cabinet
300 Nevins Street
Brooklyn, New York
Tel: +1 718 222 8434
Map: http://cabinetmagazine.org/information/visit.php
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/events/satz.php
Free but space is limited.

AURA SATZ

Ventriloqua

27 January 2012
'Ventriloqua' Performance with Lydia Kavina
BFI Southbank Gallery, presented as part of the Samsung Art+ prize exhibition (18-29 January)

CONTACT

LINKS

AURA SATZ

Ventriloqua

27 January 2012 'Ventriloqua' Performance with Lydia Kavina BFI Southbank Gallery, presented as part of the Samsung Art+ prize exhibition (18-29 January)

CONTACT

LINKS

27 January 2012
'Ventriloqua' Performance with Lydia Kavina
BFI Southbank Gallery, presented as part of the Samsung Art+ prize exhibition (18-29 January)