TRANSPOSITION

IMMERSIVE 4DSOUND INSTALLATION

Brandon Wint Charlotte Day Wilson Tanya Tagaq Yu Su

08–10.10.2021 MONOM, Berlin • 20–24.10.2021 TOKONOMA, Frankfurt

PROGRAMME start

A spatialized reading by TANYA TAGAQ of an excerpt from her novel, Split Tooth. Tanya’s oration draws attention to the intimate exchange between text and the mouth that speaks it, and to the irrefutable musicality and memory of speech. The clip (audio) is courtesy of Penguin Random House Canada from Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq. duration

10’ 37”

10’ 57”

duration 10’ 15” BRANDON WINT’s ​​ contribution, “Antidote,” is a poetic and musical collaboration between spoken word artist, Wint, and an array of musical contributors from Edmonton, AB, and Vancouver, BC. This piece resides at the compelling axis of celebration and grief, as the listener is carried through notions of self-love, divine celebration, and climate catastrophe. The poems are courtesy of Write Bloody North Publishing.

21’ 32”

8’ 0” Integrated with an original composition of music, YU SU presents a reading of the poem “immersed,” from Rita Wong’s book Undercurrent, published by Nightwood Editions (a division of Harbour Publishing, 2015). This piece creates an environment saturated by a theme of Wong’s poem: the ambiguity of identity, and the fluidity with which it may move. duration

29’ 57”

end

duration 8’ 50’’ CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON has selected three songs – “Strangers,” “Changes,” and “Adam Complex” – from her latest album, ALPHA, for this programme. Like autobiographical chapters, each piece presents song as a form of storytelling under the influence of lived experience’s different tones.

total duration

38’ 47”, including an interval of twenty seconds between each artist

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“Transposition” refers to the process of changing place, or context. For this project, four Canadian artists were invited to reimagine existing works as spatialized sound pieces using 4DSOUND technology, allowing these pieces to both move and travel independent of the performers themselves.

about the event

4DSOUND enables the production of sound holograms: highly vivid, spatial appearances of sound that enrich, augment, or transform the way we perceive our surroundings. As with visual holograms, within this sound field the listener is able to experience spatial depth and dimensionality in all directions, and from any perspective. In this special room with the 4DSOUND system the listener will be immersed in what will feel like a sourceless sound environment. The perceived architecture of this space will shift as it is determined by the compositions that will play in the room.

This project was developed by Sound Diplomacy and Lobe Studio Vancouver in collaboration with FACTOR and the Department of Heritage as part of Canada’s Guest of Honour presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2020/2021.

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about the works

As a literary term, “transposition” describes transforming something into another mode of expression without compromising its meaning.

To “transpose” something in musical terms means to adjust a song’s pitch in order to make it accessible to a particular vocal range.

Nothing about the song is considered changed, only that it has changed its position. As each of the works included in this programme investigate a continuum between literary and musical expression, we can draw attention to these processes of producing consistency through transformation, transplant, and transition.

The works created for this programme respond to a text or a piece of literature that the artist has taken inspiration from. The intention of this simple creative prompt is to open new pathways for collaboration, creation and performance, encouraging artists to use immersive sound as a medium of storytelling and expression, and inviting them to further consider the relationship between literature, oration, and their work.

The concept of this project recognizes the shared origin, and productive inseparability, between literature, oration, poetry, and music.

BRANDON WINT is a poet, spoken word artist, educator, and emerging musician based in western Canada. For more than a decade, Brandon has been a sought-after touring performer, educator, and collaborator. He has shared his work internationally, including in festivals and showcases in Latvia, Lithuania, Australia, and Jamaica. His poetry has also been published in The Puritan, Arc Poetry Magazine, and Write Magazine, among others. He is currently the artistic director of Tree Reading Series. His debut collection of poetry is Divine Animal (Write Bloody North, 2020).

PHOTO ABDUL MALIK

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CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON is a 28-year old vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Toronto. With roots ranging from R&B to folk, her soulful, singular voice and timeless sound garnered global attention with the 2016 release of her debut EP, CDW, and further through her work with friends and collaborators BADBADNOTGOOD, Daniel Caesar, and River Tiber.

Both CDW and her Stone Woman EP were long-listed for Canada’s renowned Polaris Music Prize and, in 2019, Stone Woman was honoured with a Juno Award nomination for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year. Charlotte released her debut studio album, ALPHA, on July 9th, 2021, to widespread critical acclaim.

PHOTO OTHELLO GREY

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From Nunavut, TANYA TAGAQ is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer, and author.

An original disruptor, Tagaq is a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political, and environmental change. In its many forms, Tagaq’s art challenges static ideas of genre and culture, and contends with themes of Indigenous rights, colonialism, environmentalism, racism, and violence against women and girls - in particular, MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls). Tagaq is a Member of the Order of Canada, holder of multiple honorary doctorates, and Polaris Music Prize and Juno Award winner.

Tagaq’s bestselling, award winning debut novel Split Tooth has been translated into German and French. A full-length feature documentary on Tanya’s life, career, and art is currently in production.

Split Tooth on stage, a collaboration with Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers, is scheduled for debut in Dusseldorf and BAM in 2021.

PHOTO THOMAS VAN DER ZAAG

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Kaifeng-born, Vancouver based YU SU works as a composer, DJ, and sound artist. Tapping into an expansive repertoire of “fourth world” ambience and left-field dance music, Yu Su’s emotion-packed compositional punches are her truthful approach to the ambiguity and self-reflection of “the Oriental.” Her live production and installation focuses on introducing sphere of electro-acoustic soundscape, blending rustling rainforests into an artificial dub of stereo spectrums that flow around percussion rattles, implacable sounds blooming and receding. Taken from the oeuvre of traditional ambient and experimental music, she has employed various techniques of recording and sound display, including field recording, deep listening, content-specific acoustic design and multichannel sound meditation.

PHOTO BRIGG OGLOFF

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