(installation view)
(poster design)
άκ02 is a series of sound events and listening sessions in Cyprus. Initiated and curated by Emiddio Vasquez.
Sonorous Bodies, at Thkio PPalies, 02.08.2017
Taking sonority as its main compositional concept, this performance looks at what makes a body sonorous and, in return, how bodies and techniques are extended to extend their own sonorities.
Starting from the human voice as a primary body (Sophie Fetokaki) paired with an idiophonic body (Andria Nicodemou), the performers will freely improvise and “excite” the third intermediary body of the gallery space itself which will be fed back into the room through multiple speakers (Emiddio Vasquez) placed unconventionally as to de-subjectivize listening.
In doing so, at least sonically, the traditional division of bodies (subject/object) will slowly begin to dissolve and will be replaced with a multiple one, whose own boundaries will constantly morph and shift.
As of October 31st 2016, following a political decision, the buffer zone that divides the island of Cyprus exists periodically 'out-of-time'. Following what Ignasi de Solá-Morales Rubió defines as a terrain vague, the buffer zone is uniquely vague since not only space but also time becomes indeterminate; a tempe vague, if you will.
άκ02 presents a sound installation by Emiddio Vasquez that addresses that temporal indeterminacy existing within the zone. Having built self-designed parabolic microphones using IKEA* (model FOTO) pendant lamps, the microphones were placed on a terrace within the buffer zone and picked up sound from across either side.
Given that the border delineates these two different time zones, sound within the buffer zone picked up from either side would have to adhere to the temporal transformations that the political status quo prescribes.
Hence, the three-day, three-channel sound installation is an aural experiment on time stretching and an imaginary, admittedly and knowingly falsified, series of attempts on time travelling, until March 26th when the paradox reaches its apex and time zone difference is resolved, or at least suspended, until the next daylight saving time change.
*worth noting that IKEA is fairly often a reason for why some Turkish-Cypriots cross the borders, since IKEA for EU political reasons, cannot open a shop in North Cyprus.
(poster design)
You are here, buffer zone / H4C, 23-25.03.2017
For theYard Residency, άκ02 presents two nights of improvised sound, in quadraphonic configuration, by four local electronic musicians using analogue and digital modular synthesizers (max/msp), that communicate solely via voltage control.
In line with this year's theme on memory, the duets will try to perform the same performance two nights in a row, admittedly in vain. Since modular synthesizers have no memory to recall from, the role of remembering the state of their instruments will be assigned to the performers. The audience is encouraged to attend both nights and see whether any “moments” can be recalled from the night before.
Through this interdependency the duets will also present an interesting take to the very idea of improvisation, since the instruments of each player will be altered by their counterpart, and vice versa, and hence the responses in improvisation will not limited to external stimuli, but instead they intrude each player's control over their personal domain.
(installation view)
Τhe Yard Residency, 18 & 19.11.2016
(Photo credits: Stelios Kallinikou)
(an hour away)