Art’s Birthday

January 2020
In 1963, the fluxus icon Robert Filliou dedicated the 17th of January to the birthday of arts, celebrating then its 1.000.000 return. Since then, countless celebrations take place on this day around the world, with artists and institutions celebrating Art with performances, concerts, exhibitions and more. One of the many contributions to the global celebration is a daylong radio festival produced by the EBU Euroradio Ars Acustica group. Birthday gifts – concerts and performances – are being broadcast on Euroradio's satellite network.
In 2020 – on the 1.000.057th birthday – SAVVY Contemporary, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ORF joined the worldwide party with a network concert from Berlin, Vienna, Cairo and Istanbul with the group HEYA and a performance by Tomoko Sauvage. Klangkunst/ Deutschlandfunk Kultur will broadcast from the space of SAVVY Contemporary. Live Concerts and sound works were performed in the library and gallery space and will be aired live on DFK and various European radio stations simultaneously.

With UNTRAINING THE EAR, the organisers proposed exercises to decipher sound beyond its contextual affiliation of geography, genre, and valences of identity. It is an attempt to press II [pause] to the daily storm of sonic vibrations, and voice a call to examine and explore the auditory beyond the hearing and start to LISTEN. This exercise, become an instant, immaterial and transportable exhibition space that suggests listening in-between radio frequencies and between frequencies, the lines of time and language. A momentarily network of listening transcending geographical restrictions imposed onto bodies. The session, happening only partially at SAVVY Contemporary but in real-time and simultaneously in Cairo, Tehran, and Beirut, is an attempt to collectively exercise the process of (un)training and (re)train, (de)constructing and (re)construct normative hearing, and giving spaces to non-normative listening formats of listening.

The first contribution to the celebration was by the collective HEYA: Heya [heeya / هي] (‘she’ in Arabic and also a friendly greeting in English) a research project facilitated by PhD researcher, sound artist and composer Jilliene Sellner that works towards bridging women who make sound, noise, field recordings, experimental music, and electronic music and a global audience. The main geographical areas of focus are Cairo, Tehran and Beirut as a set of examples of homogenous contexts but which all have blossomed since the Arab and Green Springs. The work is a live networked performance collaboration between Nour Sokhon in Berlin, Jilliene Sellner in Vienna, Yara Mekawei in Cairo and Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu in Istanbul. The performance uses the collaborative “distributed listening” app LiveShout (developed by Dr Franziska Schroeder and Prof Pedro Rebelo at Queens University, Belfast) and the LocusSonus soundmap which allow performers to “jam” remotely.

Recording of the event live broadcast

ORF, Vienna where I performed from

Me performing live at ORF

Me performing live at ORF

The auditorium at ORF

Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu in Istanbul before performance

Rough illustration of our system for the performance using European Satellites, LocusSonus and Live Shout.

The rough score devised by myself for the live performance. The design based on the giving space to each other and responding together. Following a score was a useful tool as we could not see or hear everyone at all times during the performance.

The rough score devised by myself for the live performance. The design based on the giving space to each other and responding together. Following a score was a useful tool as we could not see or hear everyone at all times during the performance.

Live linked post-performance discussion hosted at Savvy Berlin