Y BALA (2023)
Film, Spatial Soundscape, Performance / Screens, Speakers, Grass, Clay, Metal Vessels, Hydrophones, Effects Pedals
Liverpool Independents Biennial 2023, The Royal Standard
Partnered in the exploration of the space-between, activating presence, and the validity of place through its relation to that of another, Y BALA continues the thematic concept of LIDO, with space being named by way of proximity or action. Bala translates to ‘outflow of a lake’, therefore the action that has affected the site takes precedence over its original given name; Llyn Tegid. The partner exhibitions combine multi-screen filmic installations with multi-channel soundscapes, presenting layered field recordings and live hydrophonic performances, which interact with the water taken directly from the sites of enquiry paired with the subtle recording of present bodies through the viscosity of the collected water.
The live performative elements of the exhibition, are reflexive of those previously deployed throughout LIDO, both display the gradual pouring of water between one vessel to another, and whilst the initial performative score is predisposed, the structures are subject to improvisation and riffing off the sonic characteristics generated by the resonance of the given space and density of bodies.
Y BALA was shown as part of the Liverpool Independents Biennial programme which ran alongside the Biennial’s 12th edition uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things (2023), which addressed the history of the city through a call for ancestral forms of knowledge. In the isiZulu language, ‘uMoya’ means spirit, breath, air, and like the thematic strands running through Y BALA the festival held parallels in its exploration of the powerful vehicular properties of people and objects as they move across the world, whilst retaining and remembering the losses of the past.
Y BALA in its staging, is an amalgamation of the properties of the previously cited works, in that it situates field recordings in a divergent setting to which they were recorded; whilst taking an alternate view of what it means to evoke the sound of space through the folkloric exploration of the voice of the land. Folklore is defined by traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth and teaching, therefore it is replete with variations of sonic residue. Narratives passed through somatic boundaries via the voice which are both interior and exterior, melding states of sounding and listening as means to legitimise a knowledge that is not factual but felt. This mode of enquiry is facilitated by methodologies which emphasise experiential and embodied comprehension, with focus on the participatory. Y BALA utilises a tactile, material engagement with the landscape, in the realm of sound art the haptic manipulation of objects is plenary, and facilitates a two-pronged investigation of the spatial potentialities of recorded and re-installed sonic landscapes, which employ action based knowing that is both participatory and performative.
Above/Below: PV documented by Sulk Photography
Y BALA utilises folklore as its spring board, though does not focus on a specific narrative, rather the definition and vehicular properties of voice belonging to a landscape through which these accounts are carried; for example, there are two recorded versions of how the flooding of Lake Bala occurred. The proceeding sound works are not concerned with the tales themselves, rather the concept of augmented truths and chance sonic artefacts found within a space that aid in the realisation of a chosen belief. The recounting, or in this case, recording of site, will always be subject to ones own experience within it, which in turn, seemingly disregards the body as a viable investigative tool in the unearthing of the auditory presence of place.
Y BALA is presented visually through the lens of the depiction of women in landscape in the folk-horror genre, whose interpretations of its vastness are often considered representational and prone to emotional bias than a definitive portrayal.
Y BALA in its form, is the act of public performance, a tactile tracing of the physical landscape with hands and microphones, documented cinematically and reinstalled, augmented via the process of post-syncing spatial audio. Post-Syncing / Post-Sinking serves as a linguistic key of visual motifs and the objects used to create the corresponding sounds, ‘moss touch’ for example, refers to the moving image of a hand grazing a moss covered rock, which meets its sonic counterpart of ‘sand paper’. This process initiates multiple spatial dialogues between the visual and the sonic through interior and exterior arenas, by detecting, recording and re- staging the unique sonic histories of space via curatorial transmission; post- syncing audio spatially, applies listening as a mode of tending-to and a practice of being-with.
Y BALA utilises ambisonic installation to curate directionality and depth, punctuated by moments of silence and the temporal fading of certain sounds, allowing the undercurrent of the sonic realism of the gallery space to exist within a heavily sculpted sonorous realm. These intermissions draw reference from the functions of Shakespearean epilogue, which rather than serving to gently transition the audience from the heightened world of drama back to their everyday lives, the intentional silences in the sonorous landscape of Y BALA subtly meld the sound tapestries of factual and fictional sonic physicalities. This sonic dissonance toys with the audiences preconceived expectations of sound in turn and subverts space, either reinforcing the realistic perception of space or intentionally distorting it for narrative or emotional impact.