Supported by Asialink, tyc, Multicultural Arts Victoria and the Australia Council (Dance Board) Since our work has been focussed on the possibilities for sound works created through distributed systems, this is a timely opportunity for working with experts from Hakodate Mirai University.
We will be co-creating a new work, Archipelago: Fragment -- Hokkaido that combines a new sound installation working on a distributed wireless system fed from sound sites across Hokkaido with visual and performance elements from Naomi Ota, Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap. A fragmented narrative of material heard as sound fragments, and seen as material fragments of a traditional Hokkaido plaster. A traditional Hokkaido plaster, made from crushed scallop shells creates the material form for this installation/performance.
Sculptor Naomi Ota will create Several thin layerings of plaster forms a cracked (dessicated) layer over broad, slightly convex forms. These convex forms (from 1 metre to 3 metres in diameter) conceal vibrating speaker cones of varied frequency response.
Over the longer time-frame the crazed segments of plaster slowly disperse and re-form according to the patterns of resonance from the sound of the vibrating speakers. A separate sound diffusion system provides more recognisable and representational sounds collected from around the island of Hokkaido by Asialink recipients Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey. Towards the end of the installation season, dancers Tony Yap and Yumi Umiumare will create a dance choreography within the geography of the plaster forms and within the soundscape. Their own body sounds will affect the rates and patterns of the migrating plaster fragments.