During the two nights, November 10 and 11, 2017, I performed new sound poem The Wave at L'Abri in Geneva. The poetry has been inspired by the history of the space itself. Having been built as a WWI bunker, with its thick concrete walls designed to temporarily host and preserve life, it leaves an impression of darkness, separation from the world, but at the same time of a womb-like safety.
I was intending to create a poem about the emergence of language through sound, dwelling on sonic qualities of the words, the juxtaposition between the vowels and consonants, and their interplay. The Wave was born very much out of the experience of the space itself. It starts as a legible flow of narrative, turning into an invocation and exploding in a free-flowing stream of vocalised sounds.
Entering L’Abri space I feel I am entering a Egyptian tomb, in which life can be preserved and transformed … through sound. Certain themes within the poem could not be avoided, they came through me, as the space intended: war and peace as mental conditions, human and planetary time, language and its history. I have realised once again that it is impossible to be detached from what the space dictates, the only way is to work with it and to sing it. Calligraphic drawing ‘The Wave’ serves a graphic score to the performance and a visual interpretation of the idea of continuous sound waves in space.
With Analema Group we have completed our one year residency, which started with visiting the space of L'Abri, researching it's history and immersing ourselves into its walls, rooms and corridors, and was finalised during three day installation. Our setup included an immersive sound design, interactive sound and visual elements, which allowed the audience to actively participate in bringing the space alive through sound and vision. We did experience resonance with the space, through our own projection of sound and space projecting its vibration back at us.
More about the exhibition at www.analemagroup.com
