Bizalom (The Weather Inside)
A sound/dream/memory meditation; a work in progress
“Bizalom” was initially conceptualised with the 4DSOUND system at the Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest (2018), during a period of early experimentation. I developed the work for different live sound systems over the following two years, then, in residence at Arteles Creative Centre in Finland this year I returned to it, developing a progressively complex spatial sound work about “the weather inside.”
At the Spatial Sound Institute in 2018, I was playing with field recordings I’d made of the sea in Greece, exploring the capability of the Budapest studio to create a moving, sounding ocean beneath my feet. I began to incorporate other field recordings from travels, creating different weather states and environments to see if the omnidirectional 4DSOUND studio could fully re-immerse me in those memories (it could). I added various recordings I’d made during recent travels that inspired new stories in my own mind, and experimented with electronic pulses and suggestions of melody, exploring the emotional and narrative effects of introducing low and high frequencies and synthetic weather effects.
The work became a sound meditation that I used as a practice of deep listening for myself and whomever came into the studio to listen. It inspired me to think and write about how sound triggers memories of place, which then triggers more emotionally charged memories, the stories we tell ourselves. It also made me think about the physical and emotional effects of weather, the fear and anxiety triggers of extreme weather events especially in the context of climate change - if the weather outside is becoming more unpredictable and wild, is the weather inside, too?
I’ve long been intrigued by the Seikilos epitaph, the oldest surviving complete musical notation; a timeless poetic message of love and the search for inspiration, and happiness. I had a MIDI file of the tune, that inspired another dimension to this work. I began to include my own poetic story prompts, inspired by meditations on the word “trust”, which I had ‘received’ as an answer to a question I took to the Delphi oracle years before. I enlisted the voices of other artists in residence, including Petko Ognyanov, Ana Amorós, Kate de Lorme, and Vladimir Razhev, to speak the word for trust in English, Greek (‘empistosýni), and Hungarian (“bizalom”). Petko also read the inscriptions from the Seikilos epitaph. These elements seemed to ‘ground’ the work in a kind of antiquity, or continuity of weather patterns of human emotion and search for inspiration across time.
Live in Athens
In 2018 I performed a sound, video and DJ set at Chimeres Space in Athens.
This set begins with a live mix of “Bizalom” along with a video mix of my own films and images. The second half DJ set, mixes music and poetry.
Live in Melbourne
The second live version of “Bizalom”, part of a performance for the Space and Sometimes Movement show at MPavilion, February 2019, working with a Yamaha wave-field synthesis sound system.
Developments at Arteles, 2024
In March 2024, in residence at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland, I returned to “Bizalom”, inspired by the landscape and sounds of the Finnish winter/spring (the freeze/thaw), and its correlation with ideas of resistance to and surrender to trust.
At Arteles I was out in nature recording with various microphones and hydrophone, practicing walking meditation and deep listening. An important aspect of my residency at Arteles was developing optimal techniques of recording, and working with, spatial sounds for both installation and solo, binaural listening experiences. As I worked and walked, I thought about ‘trust’. Not only an internal process, of trusting and believing in oneself or another, the word came to have meaning for the process of developing this work over a long period - or any personal work of creation. The work develops only as I’m able to trust the value of it.
I invited other artists in residence to record the word ‘trust’ for me, in five languages (English, Hungarian, Greek, Catalan, and Finnish), and to add the word in their own language if they wished. This continued what I’d done with fellow artists during the 4DSOUND Budapest residency. Adding the new voices to theirs, I realised I now had twelve voices. A Greek chorus.
I returned to the Seikilos epitaph, reading more about the origins of the lyric poem inscribed along with the music. I read that the poem may be calling on the muse Euterpe, one of nine muses of Greek myth - the giver of pleasure, represented by a flute. I mapped out nine scenes, for each of the nine muses, each calling in a particular place, weather, emotion. Each of the muses represents a different aspect of art and science. I recorded more story fragments, expanding on the memories used in earlier versions, adding those in response to the Finland environment. Resident artist Raissa Bailey recorded a calling on each of the muses, to open each scene.
In the last week of the residency I roughly mixed five scenes, in binaural format, to share with the other artists in residence, in solo headphone listening sessions.
This rough mix explores five scenes:
1/ the Delphi mountain, the oracle, and the summer storm (Euterpe)
2/ Király bathhouse and its chorus of reverberating low frequency voices and water (Melpomene)
3/ rain on the streets of Budapest at 3am, and the echoes of ghosts in the synagogue (Polymnia)
4/ the winter freeze in the forests of Finland and its correlating memory of a frozen moment years ago (Thalia)
5/ the thaw, the experience of the release of water from the ice in the spring, and how the act of trusting is itself a kind of thaw (Urania)
Listen
The 28 minute mix for the listening sessions at Arteles.
Instructions for listening: This is mixed for binaural audio, which approximates an omnidirectional sound field, the way we experience sound in daily life. Binaural spatial sound only works in headphones - any will do, but over-ear headphones are best. Before you listen, make your body comfortable in whatever way you like, and put up a “do not disturb” sign on your door and your device, so you won’t be interrupted.
The listening sessions importantly were designed for complete relaxation, and surrender, in the attic meditation room of Arteles. Over the course of a whole day and night, on a schedule, the artists were invited up, given time to settle themselves in comfort with cushions and blankets, and given good headphones. I then left them in complete privacy to experience the work, inviting them to write their responses in a book at the end of the session. The feedback from these 12 artists from different backgrounds, cultures, countries and practices, was invaluable and helped me to see the potential power of this work - primarily, it’s simplicity and value as a ‘soundbath’ or sound meditation as much as a work of art.
Back in Australia, work continues on a spatial sound / sensory installation, to invite listeners to allow the sounds of weather and place to suggest memories, feelings, textures, temperatures (the weather inside).
