The Greek artist Takis is renowned for his vibrating sculptures and use of musical devices. As the exhibition at Tate Modern continues, this panel discussion explores the experimental practices of contemporary artists and musicians. The conversation will consider how materials might be altered to create immersive sound environments, and how sound shapes social and political ideas.
The event includes illustrated and audio presentations, and discussion with the panellists and audience. Contributors include the artist, DJ and lecturer Chooc Ly Tan, and the composer and performer Jennifer Walshe. The discussion will be chaired by the writer, composer and curator Ella Finer.
With an additional ticket, participants can enjoy a private view of the Takis exhibition after the discussion.
Biographies
Chooc Ly Tan
Chooc Ly Tan is a French-born Afro/Vietnamese/Cambodian artist, DJ & Fine Art lecturer. Tan’s practice sets out to use systems or tools that are used to understand the world, such as logic or physics, but subvert them to suggest new visions of reality. Recently her work has been shown at Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China; Chale Wote Festival, Accra, Ghana; Fondation Boghossian, Brussels; and Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE. She has recently performed her DJ sets at Regenerative Feedback 2019, WORM, Rotterdam; the Living Art Museum, Reykjavik and Apocalypse/Rave, Oslo, Norway. She also runs a club night called Décalé, a platform that puts on evenings of experimental, collapsing and flawless sounds/visuals.
Ella Finer
Ella Finer’s work in sound and performance spans writing, composing and curating with a particular interest in how women’s voices take up space; how bodies acoustically disrupt, challenge or change the order of who is allowed to occupy – command – space. Her research queries the ownership of cultural expression through sound, informing lectures, performances and events at cultural institutions such as The British Library, Whitechapel Gallery and Tate Modern and Liverpool. She is creator of the Acoustic Commons study group, consultant professor of Performance Studies at Syracuse London and a trustee of Longplayer. Her book Acoustic Commons and the Wild Life of Sound will be published by Errant Bodies, Berlin in 2020.
Jennifer Walshe
Composer and performer Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world. She has been the recipient of fellowships and prizes from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York; the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, the Internationales Musikinstitut, Darmstadt and Akademie Schloss Solitude among others. Recent projects include Aisteach, a fictional history of avant-garde music in Ireland; EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT, a work for voice, string quartet and film commissioned by the Arditti Quartet; and TIME TIME TIME, an opera written in collaboration with the philosopher Timothy Morton, which has been touring to critical acclaim. Walshe is currently Professor of Performance at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart.