Super Critical Mass, Aura photo Alex Wisser |
Super Critical Mass, a sensuous and atmospheric exploration of sound devised by Julian Day and Luke Jaaniste, featured at the opening event of Aurora Festival of Living Music, Aura. Their project had aired in Australian cities and UK festivals already so it had the expected weight of success to get the ball rolling for the Aurora Festival of Living Music.
Blacktown Arts Centre was piqued for pomp with food platters, booze and an edgy photographic exhibition documenting the back-yard lives of beer-guzzlers, corrugated iron fences and gaming consoles depressing sunken sofas. There was no doubt we were in Western Sydney, where high and low culture meet, and proud of it. An appropriate mood was set for Super Critical Mass: a mixing pot of amateurism and professionalism, performance and authentic living.
The composer-sound artists had set out to explore ambience, spatialised sound and the complexities that emerge from simple patterns and actions. Vocalists from Singing Streets and Simply Voices combined in a sort of algorithmic, wordless chant in a darkened room. Each time singers wished to contribute they would stand up and make an extended vowel sound for as long as desired and then sit down again. Staring straight ahead and uniformly dressed, the group operated as a mass of individuals rather than a team. Each participant appeared to be contributing at random intervals in terms of time and pitch. Whether or not any pattern was observable by the audience seemed less important than the mass of sound generated by the group.
The audience was invited to cohabit the performance space, walking freely in between singers, getting up close, contributing percussion with our heels. While the concept was good and the execution very real, it went on for too long. And just when we the critical masses thought it was done, they did it all again...with harmonicas.
Super Critical Mass, Aura photo Alex Wisser |
Super Critical Mass was highly affective. The sounds generated certainly had an effect on me and others. It challenged my concept of chamber music, community and interactivity. This critical mass swept me along but what would it have taken, I wonder, to make me join in?
Aurora Festival of Living Music: Super Critical Mass, composers Julian Day and Luke Jaaniste, performers Singing Streets and Simply Voices; Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney, May 4; www.auroranewmusic.com.au/
Felicity Clark is a shakuhachi, taiko and recorder player and is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
RealTime issue #109 June-July 2012 pg. web
© Felicity Clark; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]