The future seems so far away … but suddenly you are there as if a place is time. However, the cartography of this type of place is malleable and pliable: what happens in an instance doesn’t happen in a lifetime, but when it happens to you, nothing will ever be the same again. The landscape around you dissolves and erupts, and just like Hansel’s bread crumbs (in the famous German fairy tale), the pathway home to your past life vanishes. Shell shocked, you observe yourself as if you are someone else in this surreal world, and ever so slowly you find the strength to build a new life and identity on this emotional quicksand and barren topography of trauma.
With this new work, Colin Black explores and abstracts the theme residue, from which he creates a multi-faceted sound world from field recordings and musical composition. Notably, this new work contains almost no spoken words as listeners are invited to explore this sonic terrain with their imaginations wide open.
As a companion to this work the artist has initiated a Facebook group called Trauma-Informed Expression : A Space to Share and Heal as a source of inspiration for this project. Moreover this group is also a focus point to connect with the wider community with the aim of offering the community a site of healing through these traumatic times.
Produced by Colin Black
All Original Musical Compositions by Colin Black
Audio Engineer: Colin Black
Première broadcast: Österreich 1 (Ö1) - ÖRF, Kunstradio – Radiokunst, 15 November 2020
Live Musicians:
Igor Ustavshchikov (Violin I)
Victoriya Shkit (Violin II)
Yaroslav Venger (Viola)
Dmytro Glushchenko (Cello)
Nataliya Kyrychevs’ka (Piano)
Dmytro Synenko (Marimba)
Myckola Tomasyshyn (Vibraphone)
Live musicians recorded and mixed at Lemma Recording Studio, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Sound Producer: Oleg Stuka
Audio Engineer: Oleg Tatavchuk
Musical Co-ordinator and Translator: Olga Ligus
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it’s arts funding and advisory body.
Special thanks to Elisabeth Zimmermann and Kunstradio.
Dr Colin Black is an internationally acclaimed composer and sound artist having won the 2015 New York Festivals award for sound art, the 2003 Prix Italia Award and being shortlisted as a finalist in the Prix Phonurgia Nova (France), Prix Marulić (Croatia), Grand Prix Nova (Romania), UK International Radio Drama Competition and the APRA Professional Development Awards (Australia). Black has received multiple national and international commissions to create innovative major works for installation, performance and broadcast in Australian, USA and across Europe. Black’s curating credits include, international festival/showcases of award winning Australian acoustic art and radio art at London’s Resonance104.4fm, Kunstradio (ÖRF, Austria) and Toronto’s New Adventures In Sound Art. Australian showcases include Black curating the 2016 Ear Drops: Sonic Boundaries for ABC Radio National’s (RN) Soundproof program, while in 2013 he was invited to curate Sound Fix: Your Weekly Dose of Transmitted Audible Art series for ABC Radio National’s Sound. Music. Word. program. Black completed his PhD at the University of Sydney where he was a recipient of the University of Sydney Postgraduate Awards Scholarship. More recently Black has been a visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, guest lecturer at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, casual academic lecturing at the University Technology, Sydney and is currently an adjunct lecturer at Southern Cross. Black is also the founding member of The International Radio Art (and Creative Audio for Trans-media) Research Group.