I am notoriously late to everything. So Friday evening, ten minutes to the start of Multi-Channel Double Feature, ticketless, I was parking my car a ten minute walk away from EMPAC, rushing to make the walk in five, and enjoying the brisk wind through my equally brisk stride. When I arrived, the ticket line was backed up to the elevator and an announcement made that all shows were starting 30 minutes late. The momentum carrying me through the glass doors was abruptly halted by waiting. Thankfully EMPAC was running behind, too.
At 7:30, several festival goers and I were ushered into Studio 2, containing eight speakers in a circle surrounding chairs in sets of two scattered in different orientations. It wasn't till later I noticed the other 16 speakers in two rings of eight above us. Having come late and alone, I set up near the outskirts of the cluster facing the wall - a conscious decision to establish myself as an individual, separate from and not preoccupied with the other audience members, but only my own individual experience. As the lights were dimmed, I pulled my shoulders back, conscientiously straightening my spine to assume a relaxed, meditative posture.
The first piece by Volkmar Klien instilled a sense of exploratory playfulness. It seemed to tell the story of joyfully discovering mechanics! Here is a bouncing ball! And look! As I place my hand above it, watch as it ricochets, faster and faster and faster, and then I take my hand away and up it goes! This same childlike sense of wonder extended metaphorically to sound, and I felt as though I had never truly heard sound before. I relished in wonder and amazement as pieces of the sound were changed, stretched and modified little by little over a repetitive theme to quite drastically different yet similar sounds. As tempo and volume increased, I felt fully immersed in an exploration of The Things Sound Can Do and felt a smile stretch across my face like the first time I dropped a slinky down a set of stairs, kept a hula hoop around my waist, or discovered the full potential of ink and a blank piece of paper. When the piece came to a close, I still had that smile plastered across my face, looking around to try to spot the magician who had called to light the joys of sound.
The second piece, by Hans Tutschku, in stark contrast, shocked me with it's abruptness. The mourning vocals felt hauntingly trapped as they raced across the surface of a dome. I fully agree with Brian Chitester - the vocals were full of longing and despair, a despair I was instantly terrified of. Where the first piece had me looking around in childlike wonder, the second piece had me clutching the edges of my seat, eager to pull my knees to my chest, looking around with wide, scared, anxious eyes for where the female specter would come from next, trying to protect my heart from the clutches of her overwhelming despair. Metallic additions furthered the haunting clash between female vocals trapped in a dome and a post-apocalyptic urban environment. By the middle of the piece, I had finally managed to clutch at some peace of my own, not because the sounds had become any more calming, but because I had grown to accept my own position in this world of sound. I was no longer looking around anxious for the next dart of the specter across the ceiling dome, but had come to accept that it would come, and I would not know when or from where. This tension between finding and maintaining calm while immersed in a world of hopelessness and anguish made the piece worthwhile and beautiful, despite the anxiety it did draw up in me. By the end of the piece, I was calm. It was a calmness I was actively engaged in maintaining against the clinging hands of anxiety and despair, but successfully keeping.
I stayed afterward for the Q&A, and Sunday, returned again, this time leaving time and space for my arrival. Sunday, both pieces led me to a state of meditative, non-judgmental introspection. Remarkably, the second piece which had so shook me Friday, felt calming to me Sunday, the vocals enveloping me in a dome of sound in which to explore myself.
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