In collaboration with musician and artist Marijn Degenaar (aka. Circular Ruins), “shells that glow like æmbers” is an interdisciplinary project that explores the potentiality of sculpting sound into a semantic and spiritual practice which could be exercised collectively to cultivate our aesthetic sensibility. The project seeks to experiment with the act of reading as a process of sonic materialization to create a meditative listening experience for wandering in the deeper level of consciousness. Inspired by Daoism, the works of Pauline Oliveros, and the ancient belief of animism, the practice aims to guide the participants into a state of deep listening through what the duo coined as “Deep Reading”, that is, to experience reading as listening, as sensing, as casting spells — a form of ritualistic and magic practice.
“shells” is the first Deep Reading performance the duo created, based on the ancient Chinese text Shan Hai Jing (山海經), an encyclopaedia of mythic geography and fantastic creatures composed by unknown spirits in the 4th century BCE. This piece involves creating a sonic landscape that translates the semantic meanings of the selected text into frequencies and vibrations. the spirits of ancient wisdom through deep reading-listening, the sonic landscape is created through a combination of electronic and acoustic instruments, field recordings, and voice. The selected text will be read out loud, and its sonic materiality will be explored in relation to the space and the audience. Audience is invited to participate in the process of deep reading through active listening and engagement with the sonic landscape, and eventually discover possible paths to encounter the spirits that inhabit in the texts.
Listen here 🐚✨
(contact me for secret code)
