SEMI SILENT

The piece deals with an embodied dematerialization of a grid, a structure. Through a hypnotic process the listener is guided to embody the struggles of Ailanthus Altissima, The Tree of Heaven entangled in the fences of Bucharest and to exit this limitation mentally.

One of my favorite objectives in my short trip to Paris was to record the sound of TGVs. I was always fascinated by the idea of being a train-spotter and in my recording-visit to the Gare de l’Est, I had the chance to catch three TGVs and two “regular” trains that sounded and looked like TGVs… I recorded some of the train station’s ambiance, but mostly the trains. Have a good listening at precisely 12.55 pm!

The revitalization of an ancient Transylvanian Saxon custom

The poetry of V. Leac seems suspended somewhere in between humor, absurdity, and a light and tender perplexity in the face of those minuscule exceptional instances in one’s life. Every next step is a trustworthy transgression toward an uncertain, promising and yet deluded future. In the shape of a musical/sonic performance, we take upon ourselves to read his poetry, with warm loudness and other means tangible while standing on our toes: a performance in the guise of a duo of voices for a spoken-choir simulacrum, using drawing as percussion, some recordings from inside a piano, and a double bass.

This sonic poem – in the absence of words – could be a participatory review for the abundance of dating apps rooted relationships with short expiration date. It contains reactions to matches on such apps, reflections to the essay The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han, memory exhumations and sharp intimacy technicalities. The voice-voices disclose fragility as virtue and pain as spectacle as much as criticism and joy and pleasure as heart fitness.

Omnia Hall is the neuralgic point of the future projections for the National Center of Dance in Bucharest. It is the hall the dance center has dreamed about since its foundation in 2004. Omnia Hall is promised to be ready for use in 2020.

The National Center of Dance was hosted for 7 years in the National Theater and in 2011 was invited to empty the premises, starting an exhausting uncertainty until 2016 when the technocrat government designated Omnia Hall as the long expected house of dance. After a long process of selection of projects for the rehabilitation and the architectural adaptation of the building for the actual needs of a national dance center, today we are still waiting for the construction to start.

Omnia 2020 is a personal and slightly emotional reading of the past, present and a possible future of the National Center of Dance in Bucharest, using recordings from the personal archive containing numerous sounds of performances, rehearsals, workshops, conferences, various events, meetings etc.

Archive recordings:

2010, an office meeting and a heavy rain that damaged the interior of the space used by the National Center of Dance in the National Theater.

2015, meeting of the dance community with the Culture Minister at that time, Adrian Barbu, promoter of the unification in an unique institution of the National Center of Dance, the National Opera and the Operetta Theater. Against all odds, the project was abandoned after the meeting.

2017, The Song of the Sirens, a vocal performance presented in the foyer of Omnia Hall.

In memoriam Alina Popa

Photo: Alina Ușurelu

(the English transcription will be available soon)

Anamaria Pravicencu studied drawing and sculpture, with an interest for sound installation. Since 2006 she’s in charge with the artistic direction of Jumătatea plină, promoting author comics, and sonic and musical experiment (Sâmbăta sonoră) through constant and distinct programs. She is the curator of the SEMI SILENT portfolio and she keeps producing sound work.

The piece was commissioned by the National Center of Dance for the festival LIKE CNDB in April 2018, edition dedicated to Omnia Hall in 2020.

Written, voiced, recorded, edited and mixed by Anamaria Pravicencu

Produced by SEMI SILENT

The material you are about to hear is an immersive acoustic experience containing footage from and around HOIA BACIU forest.

We track. We follow movement, note the progress or existence of something, we signal through sonar and bio sonar, radio and Morse, radar and scanners, heart monitors and surveillance. In so doing, we listen but also compose an acoustic space of our trailing, create sonic debris of our pursuit, a spontaneous audible record.

To consider this soundtrack, I turned to the 8-Track, an obsolete technology developed in the 1960s: a magnetic tape of 8 tracks would play two tracks at a time in stereo, automatically switching between the 4 programs in an endless loop. The result is Eight Over Two: A Soundtrack, a virtual 8-track, a meta-track that traces the sonic flotsam of our tracking in four programs.

Eight Over Two: A Soundtrack is part of a larger project, Eight Track, that explores the varied meanings of the concept of “tracking” through poetry, performance, photography, drawing, and sound.

Photo: Nicu Ilfoveanu

Oana Avasilichioaei’s art practice interweaves poetry, translation, drawing, photographic and moving image, sound, and performance. The work explores an expanded idea of language (whether textual, visual, aural, etc.) as reverberatory and evolutionary, language as trace and resistance, the social and political forces/voices of the polis, polylingual and polyphonic poetics, historical structures, borders and movement, and orality. Her five poetry collections include We, Beasts (Wolsak & Wynn 2012) and Limbinal (Talonbooks 2015); recent performance works include MOUTHNOTES (2016) and OPERATOR (2018). Based in Montreal, Canada, she frequently crosses borders to perform her work in Canada, USA, and Europe, and she was the 2018 Audain Visual Artist in Residence at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

www.oanalab.com

Recording, editing & mixing: Oana Avasilichioaei

Piece commissioned by SEMI SILENT.

During a thunderstorm that never happened, 5 people meet by fireside to discuss how power structures play a part in how we interpret and hear different voices. Together they converse and examine how we listen to each other's voices, how we experience our own voices and how we think our voices might relate to our personalities and identities. In reality, the 5 of them actually met individually with the artist in the sticky heat of Toronto's humid summer days, surrounded by cicadas singing in the trees. Five separate conversations and four and a half hours of recordings were edited together into one conversation – because isn't it so much nicer to imagine them all sitting around a fire together as the rain gently fades away?

Suggested further reading: Anne Carson, The Gender of Sound, in Glass, Irony and God (New York: New Directions Books, 1995).

Photo: Nicu Ilfoveanu

Ștefana Frățilă is a Romanian-born composer, multimedia artist and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Since 2012, she has been creating sound work for dance, theatre, and public gallery spaces. Ștefana has exhibited, performed and screened her work internationally, including e-flux (NY), the 2nd Kamias Triennial (Quezon City, Philippines) and Humber Galleries (Toronto). She recently completed the BRiC residency at the Banff Centre and finished her Master’s in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Over the years, she has received critical acclaim for her artistic work by various media outlets, including: Exclaim, The FADER, Vice, and xlr8r.

Recording, editing & mixing: Ștefana Frățilă

Piece commissioned by SEMI SILENT

A non-verbal sound design piece that translates the struggle of living a normal life, while dealing with the memory of a past trauma and its triggers.