HYENAZ

stip3kate

  • S.W.E.A.T. podcast featuring HYENAZ in conversations on Extraction

    As artists and researchers, we are constantly exploring the connections between art, the environment, and labour rights. Interviews from our ongoing Extraction project were broadcast as part of Mad Kate’s S.W.E.A.T. podcast.

    In March 2023 we had the opportunity to interview Donato Laborante, who we met during our tour of the Murgia region of Italy in 2015. As well as being a curator, Donato is a poet, actor, performer and storyteller who galvanizes the artistic scene to create happenings and to move people to take political action in their everyday actions. During one of our visits, we made a journey into a marble quarry in Apricena, and were joined by several local artists who spontaneously began playing percussive sounds on the wall of the quarry. It was this moment that sparked our interest in the idea of extraction as metasignfier–including the extraction of (creative) labour from (precarious) bodies; minerals, gas and water from the ground; sounds, words and images from sentient beings; the consensual extraction of digital content, and the “mining of the exotic” from our very identities. Our third visit to the area allowed us to deepen our understanding of the relationship between stone, sound, and time.

    February 2023 featured an interview with Professor Imre Szeman, the inaugural Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough. During the interview, he shared his insights on defining extractivism, the role of the artist in using the term, the use and limitation of regarding everything as animate, and greenwashing. From 2021-2022, he was the Climate Critic for the Green Party of Canada. He is co-founder of the Petrocultures Research Group, which explores the socio-cultural dimensions of energy use and its implications for energy transition and climate change, and the leader of After Oil, a collective which has produced After Oil (West Virginia University Press, 2016) and Solarities: Seeking Energy Justice (University of Minnesota Press, 2022). He is the author of On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy (WVUP, 2019) and is working on The Future of the Sun, a book detailing corporate and state control of the transition to renewables.

    May 2023 featured an interview with Professor Thomas F. DeFrantz in conversation with HYENAZ in the context of our project on art and cultures of extraction. Together we talk about time, Black aesthetics, NOWness and the processes of building creative encounters. Thomas F. DeFrantz teaches at Northwestern University and directs SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology; the group explores emerging technology in live performance applications. He believes in our shared capacity to do better and engage creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, proto-feminist, and queer affirming.

    S.W.E.A.T. airs on Colaboradio Free Radios Berlin Brandenburg – 88.4fm in Berlin, 90.7fm in Potsdam, and streaming at FR-BB.org. Afterwards its available for streaming from your podcast app.

  • Sound in Stone: Field Research – Stalacpipe Organ, Luray Caverns

    In April 2023 I had the opportunity to visit the incredibly vast underground caverns and fascinating geological formations located in Luray, Virginia, USA. The caverns feature a remarkable assortment of intricate stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and draperies, formed over millions of years through the slow process of mineral deposition.

    I came in search of listening to and recording the Great Stalacpipe Organ, located deep inside the caverns–the largest “natural” musical instrument in the world. The organ uses specially designed rubber mallets to tap on stalactites of varying sizes, producing a range of musical notes. When played, the stalactites resonate, creating a unique and enchanting melody throughout the caverns.

    The organ was invented and built by Leland W. Sprinkle in the late 1950s. Sprinkle was an electronic scientist and amateur geologist who was captivated by the resonant qualities of the stalactites found in Luray Caverns. Inspired by this natural phenomenon, he conceived the idea of transforming the caverns into a giant musical instrument.

    To create the Great Stalacpipe Organ, Sprinkle carefully selected 37 different stalactites within the caverns, each chosen for their unique size and tonal quality. He then attached custom-made rubber mallets to the stalactites using small mechanical actuators. These actuators are activated by an electrically controlled keyboard console, similar to a traditional organ console.

    When a key on the console is pressed, a corresponding mallet strikes the selected stalactite, causing it to vibrate and produce a musical note. The sound generated by the stalactites reverberates through the caverns, creating an otherworldly and hauntingly beautiful melody that resonates with visitors.

    The Great Stalacpipe Organ covers a range of four and a half octaves, spanning from a deep bass to higher-pitched tones. The size and shape of each stalactite determine the specific note it produces when struck. The stalactites are not harmed or altered in any way during the process, as the mallets strike them gently, allowing them to resonate naturally.

    I made several video recordings inside the caves; unfortunately the recording of the organ is disturbed by the voices of the other guests in attendance, I was unable to be in the caverns alone. However I was able to see how the mechanism worked and to understand something of how this giant lithophone was conceived.

  • Sound in Stone: Audio Visual Works in Progress

    For this research I took documentary footage and combined it with high quality audio recordings, all of which were recorded during my 6 month research. These include recordings of stone instrument, recordings in caves and other atmospheres, recordings of our deep listening journey in a stone quarry, and interviews with experts in the fields of history, geology, biology, anthropology and anthropology, as well as local teachers, sharing their knowledge(s) of lived and practiced traditions. I then used Resolve, Resolume and Bitwig to create short audio visual works where the audio and video dialogue with each other–prompting one to respond to the other, and vise-versa. An effect of this strategy is magnetic and trancelike quality to the musical and visual experience.

  • Sound in Stone: Field Research – Murgia, Italy

    As winter waned in 2023 we embarked on a journey back to the Murgia region eager to deepen our exploration of stone as a conduit for sound and aliveness. This place is special to us, not only because of its arid hills and valleys, lined with tall and rattly Ferula Ferita shrubs, but also for the warm and enigmatic people who call it home.

    One person in particular draws us back time and time again: Donato Laborante. A curator, poet, actor, performer, and storyteller, Donato invigorates the artistic community, inspiring them to create events and engage in political action through everyday gestures. Our fascination with the theme of extraction began on an excursion to a marble quarry in the town of Apricena on Christmas Day in 2016, where a group of artists, locals and children joined us to craft a spontaneous musical performance striking stones and other detritus against the quarry wall.

    Our work in the region felt incomplete; the surface barely scratched. What follows are daily notes and reflections from our journey.

    This work is possible thanks to support from Musikfonds STIP-III programming, giving us the gift of time to research, revisit, compile, and compose audio visual works from field recordings and videos we have made over years of slow-movement journeys across Europe, to understand that fundamental human impulse: to move.