Skan II


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review

ECAS WP 4 - Stage

Skan II
sound art exhibition
31.05. - 24.08.2014 / Riga, Latvia

Seven years after the first SKAN a follow-up exhibition SKAN II was included in the official programme of events celebrating Riga 2014 – European Capital of Culture.

The exhibition took place in three parts from 30 May to 24 August 2014. It featured works by a total of 18 artists who represent a broad spectrum of approaches to audio-visual art.

The central venue for the SKAN II exhibition was the LU Botanical Garden at Kandavas Street 2, as well as, in the case of three works: the Kalnciems Quarter.

ECAS supported events during the festival:
Skan II Part 131.05. - 20.06.2014
Date
ActionExhibited works
ParticipantsStefan Roigk & Thomas Wochnik, Thomas Rutgers & Ytske Blom, Signe Liden, Peter Bogers, Aernoudt Jacobs, David Helbich, Pascal Broccolichi
LocationLU Botanical Garden at Kandavas Street 2
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSKAN II booklet
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/en/2014/sound-art-installation-skan-ii-part-one/
Photos
Video work by Thomas Rutgers & Ytske Blom: The Beaters
overview
Description As of May, the 31st, the official “Riga 2014” sound art exhibition “SKAN II” will be open to visitors. This will be the first part of the exhibition, consisting of seven works and lasting until June, the 20th. Its main venue is the the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia at Kandavas Street 2, as well as, in the case of Pascal Broccolichi’s work, the Kalnciems Quarter gallery. „SKAN II”, organized by the Skanu Mezs association for adventurous music and related arts, focuses on presenting latest developments in sound art as well as directly and indirectly linking this form of art to the wooden architecture of Riga.

As already mentioned, the first part of “SKAN II” will run from May, the 31st, till June, the 20th, and its main venue, apart from the Kalnciems Quarter gallery, is the the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia, therefore presenting an exciting collision of sound art, architecture, urban environment and nature – works will be exhibited throughout the whole territory of the garden. The works of this first part of „SKAN II” have been selected in curatorial collaboration with the international network „Resonance”, which is devoted to producing and presenting new European sound art.

Untamed Choir by the Dutch media artist Peter Bogers is an audio installation that consists of 40 small speakers hanging from the ceiling, playing 30 separate audio channels. Twenty of these speakers are positioned into a circle, cones pointing inwards. The rest of them are divided over the exhibition room. The human voice is used as the ‘sound basis’. We hear continual, gradual changes ranging between ‘scream’ and ‘song’ in various tonal pitches.Three different vocal parts in three different octaves are alternated and connected to each other by a screaming voice. During the vocal parts the ‘soundscape’ gradually changes as one moves through the room. With every move the listener makes, a slight and subtle change in the audiospectrum will present itself.

The Beaters is a collaboration between Thomas Rutgers, who completed a Master’s degree in composition in context at the Utrecht School of the Arts, and Jitske Blom, an interdisciplinary designer and artist. It is a percussive, mechanical sculpture. “The installation consists of a large sounding box with dozens of beaters attached to it,” They describe the work. “But there’s more than meets the eye: materiality is disguised, movement manipulated, and even gravity defied, showing us how visual information can make us hear in a different way.”

In addition to the six works, exhibited at the Botanical garden, French artist Pascal Broccolichi’s work “Table d’harmonie” will be installed at the Kalnciems Quarter gallery.It is an intriguing sound work whose formal purity evokes minimalist installation as much as a repetitive pattern drawn from an all over perspective. Inspired as an artificial soundscape, the image of “Table d’harmonie” is structured like a horizon separating the sky and earth. But soon a resonance is established between sound and the black mass of the drawing where Black corindon dust is spread out on the floor composing strictly regular craters. A loudspeaker is laid out in the content of each crater. The sound piece is composed of low frequencies recorded with the help of a hydrophonic sensor revealing the patterns of sound flux in different parts of the river Daugava or the Gulf of Riga.

 
Skan II Part 201.07. - 20.07.2014
Date
ActionExhibited work
ParticipantsHeimo Lattner & Judith Laub, Tommi Gronlund & Petteri Nisunen, Evelīna Deičmane, Max Eastley, Leif Elggren & CM von Hausswolff, Anke Eckardt
LocationLU Botanical Garden at Kandavas Street 2
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSKAN II booklet
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/en/2014/tomorrow-the-opening-of-part-2-of-sound-art-exhibition-skan-ii/
Photos
Video Heimo Lattner & Judith Laub: Silbadores
Tommi Gronlund & Petteri Nisunen
Deičmane, Eastley, Hausswolff, Eckardt
Description Today, on the 1st of July at 18:00, the second part of the “Riga 2014” sound art exhibition “SKAN II” will open its doors at the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia (Kandavas Street 2). The opening of the exhibition will feature a DJ set by Tommi Grönlund of ”Sähkö Recordings” and the performance version of Heimo Lattner and Judtih Laub’s installation „Silbadores: Stuck”, which will feature Kico Correa – a master whistler from the Canary Islands, who speaks the nearly forgotten whistling language called el silbo. The exhibition itself will consist of works by C.M. von Hausswolff & Leif Elggren, Anke Eckardt, Max Eastley and others. Tommi Grönlund in collaboration with Petteri Nisunen is also participating in the exhibition yet is also well known as a DJ and manager of the Finnish label ”Sähkö Recordings”, that has published records by, among others, Pan Sonic and Jimi Tenor.
 
Skan II Part 325.07. - 24.08.2014
Date
ActionExhibited work
ParticipantsVoldemārs Johansons, Michael J. Schumacher, Christian Skjødt, Edwin van der Heide & Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, Eli Keszler
LocationLU Botanical Garden at Kandavas Street 2
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSKAN II booklet
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/en/2014/friday-the-opening-of-sound-art-exhibition-skan-ii-part-three/
Photos Gallery 1
Video Christian Skjødt
Eli Keszler
Description Friday, on the 25th of July at 18:00, the third part of the “Riga 2014” sound art exhibition “SKAN II” will open its doors at the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia (Kandavas Street 2) and the Kalnciems Quarter art gallery (Kalnciema street 35). The opening of the exhibition will feature performances by improvising percussionist Eli Keszler, composer Michael J. Schumacher and the duo of Edgars Rubenis and Edgars Eihmanis – core members of the Latvian drone rock group Mona De Bo. Artists, represented in the third and final part of “SKAN II” are: Voldemārs Johansons, Max Eastley, Michael J. Schumacher, Edwin van der Heide & Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, Christian Skjødt, Eli Keszler, David Helbich, Evelīna Deičmane, Anke Eckardt, Heimo Lattner and Judith Laub.
 


TAGS

SOUND ART

In 2007, the association for adventurous music and related arts “Skaņu Mežs” organised the first SKAN sound art exhibition with the participation of 12 internationally renowned, as well as local artists, at the erstwhile chicory and pasta factory near Arkādijas Park. Back then, in the context of Latvia’s contemporary cultural scene, SKAN was a unique event, because it was the first time that such a broad exhibition dedicated to the genre of sound art had been held in Riga. Moreover, this fact did not go unnoticed in the international arena, and a favourable review was duly published in the English avant-garde music magazine, THE WIRE.

Seven years later, a follow-up exhibition SKAN II was included in the official programme of events celebrating Riga 2014 – European Capital of Culture. On this occasion too, the exhibition had attracted outstanding artists from all over the world, for whom sound is at the very epicentre of their creative oeuvre.

In the context of sound art, the space in which the works of art are exhibited is of paramount importance, and is defined by its architectonic, historical, social and acoustic attributes. The work of art unquestionably interacts with the space in which it is aired. With this in mind, the venues chosen for this exhibition are the University of Latvia’s Botanical Garden in Riga, as well as the Kalnciems Quarter Gallery and Pardaugava’s wooden manor houses. The goal of SKAN II is to allow this aesthetic experience to attract not only art lovers, but also chance bypassers.

Works of sound art have the ability to accent a space and transform it into a special event venue. As the main venue for the exhibition, the Botanical Garden will serve as its central axis, in order to also draw attention to the adjoining historical building district of Pardaugava. It brings with it a layer of history and culture, which is worth highlighting, including places like the forgotten Philosophers’ Alley, as well as the old manor houses and wooden buildings such as the Volfschmidt Manor House in the Botanical Garden. Skaņu Mežs is able to accent this urban environment through the material that is the foundation for its creative offering, i.e. sound.

The exhibition took place in three parts from 30 May to 24 August 2014. It featured works by a total of 18 artists who represent a broad spectrum of approaches to audio-visual art: Jitske Blom & Thomas Rutgers, Peter Bogers, Aernoudt Jacobs, Signe Lidén, David Helbich, Pascal Broccolichi, Stefan Roigk, RIXC, Anke Eckardt, Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen, Heimo Lattner & Judith Laub, Carl Michael von Hausswolf & Leif Elggren, Evelīna Deičmane, Max Eastley, Voldemārs Johansons, Michael Schumacher, Edwin van der Heide & Jan-Peter Sonntag, and Christian Skjødt.

The exhibition’s main supporters were: the Foundation Riga 2014, EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) Global, the British Council, the Danish Cultural Institute, the French Institute, the Goethe Institute in Riga and the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Riga (EUNIC Riga Representative Office).

The central venue for the SKAN II exhibition was the LU Botanical Garden at Kandavas Street 2, as well as, in the case of three works: the Kalnciems Quarter. The exhibition was open to visitors from Wednesday to Sunday between the hours of 13.00 and 18.00.


SKAN II review for The Wire


Skan II is the second edition of a sound-focused art exhibition organised by Riga’s Skaņu Mežs festival – 2007 was the first. Split into three parts between May and August, it featured a rolling programme of numerous works by Latvian and international artists installed around the University of Latvia’s Botanical Gardens, both outside among the plant life, and inside some of the garden’s utility spaces.

Heimo Lattner and Judith Laub’s The Silbadores: Part 4 was broadcast from the garden’s main greenhouse. Composed in El Silbo, a whistled language that allows the inhabitants of the Canary Island of La Gomera to communicate across its mountainous terrain, El Silbo almost died out in the late 1970s but has since been revived in Gomeran schools. A native whistler performed The Silbadores at the exhibition’s opening event, Now the whistles of its recorded version intermittently pierce the air above the garden, calling out for attention, or possibly warning against predators.

Anke Eckhardt’s Ground occupied a decomposing wooden manor house, the type that dot Riga as a reminder of centuries of German presence. Standing on the floor, while hissing air compression heaves concrete slabs into slow and heavy motion around you, is a queasy experience. Structured around metal tubes and burnt wooden frames, Evelina Delemane’s outdoor installation Chimney was an audio narrative spoken in Latvian telling a story about wooden manor houses. To hear it you had to place your ear against one of the tubes emitting faint voices. Even for non-Latvian speakers like myself, the effect was mournful. Eli Keszler’s wired-up Truss contraption, installed off-site, and Max Eastley’s wind powered installations playfully echoed each other, though both seemed detached from the exhibition, as if they could have been anywhere.

David Helbich’s Riga Tracks was an unhinged audio guide that required several hours for the participant to make their way around the city and engage in ‘wall sex’, involving headphone caressing and putting oneself in other awkward positions. The accompanying booklet is a great read, though it’s questionable how many people really followed its instructions.

The most striking works were those that embraced the unique spaces they inhabited. The Satellite Laser Ranging Station is essentially a very deep hole in the garden’s ground. As one descends the stairs, it gets danker and more constrained. In the second part of the exhibition, Leif Elggren and Carl Michael von Hausswolff’s Downdowndowndowmn, played with this: its drone gets more intense as you’re swallowed by the depths, becoming increasingly nightmarish until one reaches the lowest chamber, painted red. In part three, Voldemars Johansons presented his OP. 38, part of his ongoing Standing Waves series. Johansons turned the space into an extended pipe organ, a drone bellowing from an installation of metal pipes jutting out of the bottom chamber’s floor. Both works tuned into an already strange space, and charged it with drama.

Christian Skjodt’s Illumination was installed in the garden’s vine cellar – a damp and dark domed room covered in earth, with a tiny hole letting in a pinprick of light – and involved the sonification of sunlight captured by solar panels on the cellar’s roof which translated the energy into a pulsing drone inside. The work description claimed that Illumination was a literal translation of data, but like so many sonification pieces, it allowed musicians to make numerous choices that affected the outcome: what circuitry to use, how the energy is amplified, and so on. In this case the effect was sinister – listening to the low drone in the cold and damp darkness dispersed through a series of small speakers mounted in backlit perspex boxes, the scene resembled some occult ritual, rather than a laboratory-bound explication of phenomena.

Illumination exemplified the core theme running through Skan II. Many countries look to their landscapes to personify national characteristics (spend a short time with a Latvian and they’ll regularly mention the forests that define their patch off the Baltic). But as everywhere else, this relationship is fictional and arbitrary. Many works in Skan II were site-specific, and the best relied on a dramatisation of human relationships with landscape. Flesh is never rooted in the land, the only connection it has with it is made through stories.

Text by Nathaniel Budzinski for The Wire magazine (November 2014)

2014

Skaņu Mežs

Working Period IV