“Scratched Surface”

Radio station: Musiq3 (RTBF : French-speaking Belgian public radio)

Venue/s of the event: Maison de la radio “Flagey”, studio 2

Links: http://www.rtbf.be/musiq3/emissions_concert-du-soir
http://www.aurallandscape.net

audio: +
video: +
pictures: +

As a field recordist Els Viaene listens, zooms into and enlarges the aural landscapes surrounding us. The natural rhythms and textures of the sounds hidden in those landscapes form the basis of her work. In this performance she will draw the landscape of a fictitious place, an empty landscape to end somewhere in the North East of Belgium, in a place called the Sahara. A peculiar sand landscape surrounded by needle-leaved trees and a lake in the middle. A nature landscape which is the result of years of sand mining for the glass industry in the 1920’s. Hidden underlaying layers throughout time are made audible whereas the eye cannot see them anymore.

Els Viaene (*1979, Belgium) started her work as a sound artist / field recordist in 2001. With a set-up of two small microphones she listens, zooms into and enlarges the aural landscapes surrounding us. The natural rhythms and textures of the sounds hidden in those landscapes form the basis of her work.

Working on these sound materials for performances, sound compositions or installations she makes the listeners travel into imaginary and organic environments. Through the specific use and set-up of sound within a space her installations create new spaces within existing ones, either emphasizing or making disappear the physical borders of that space. In doing so she often plays with the notions of seeing and hearing, the perception of what we see and hear and how both interfere.

Recent works include:
Follow me inside out – sound composition commissioned by Spor festival (DK)
Canopy Beat / Sountrack of the Rainforest – sound composition
The Mamori Expedition – sound installation commissioned by Arts Centre Netwerk (BE)

www.aurallandscape.net

appearance at Tuned City