Mongdular
2007 / Live performance for tape, electronics and percussion.
Performances and broadcasts:
• Snd:arc (Sound and Architecture), an Open Ear event, Broadstairs Campus, Canterbury Christ Church University (18 May 2007)
• Radio Papesse, Sienna, Italy (May 2008)
• URBANsoundWORK/City Mix project: Fabrica Europe 08 Festival, Stazione Leopolda, Florence, Italy (3, 9, 10, 17 and 23 May, 2008)
• 38th International Festival of Music and Electronic Art, Bourges, France (June 2008)
Performing with Liz Samson (percussion).
Snd:arc, May 2007
Mongdular is a soundtrack for buildings, which seeks to temporarily (and problematically) situate specific pieces of contemporary architecture within the history of heroic modernism.
The recorded elements of this soundtrack obliquely signal the heroic age of modernist architecture by quoting text from the official guidebook to the city of Brasilia. However, specific references to the actual city of Brasilia are removed, leaving a tourist-guide description of an unknown modernist space, to be interpreted by the listener in relation to the actual physical space of the building in which the piece is performed. The text is accompanied by other sonic markers of modernity, including electronica and musique concrete. Other elements of the soundtrack seek to undermine, shift or challenge the listener/viewer’s perception of this space: notably texts and sounds that signal the gap between modernist architectural ideals and the reality of post-modern building design and construction.