BLOG (selection)
The Waving Piece at Kunstenfestivaldesarts, 9 May 2015
The Waving Piece was presented at the conclusion of The Time We Share, a conference on witnessing, in the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, on 9 May 2015. The conference was curated by Dasarts and combined performance works with lectures and talks, with amongst others Dries Verhoeven, Mala Kline, Arkadi Zaides, etc.
HOLA HU performances for Klankenstroom at the Citadel Diest, 19 April 2015
In full spring Hola Hu was presented again for a day of musical performance and installation at Klankenstroom, Citadel Diest, curated by Guy Vandromme.
Sharing an evening/concert with Victoria Hanna at Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona, 8 and 9 April 2015
In the Session 5 Irregular Section, a series curated by Quim Pojol at Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona, I was invited to perform with Victoria Hanna, alongside contributions by Idoia Ziboleta and Itziar Okariz. Victoria and me made a duet version of the piece YOUYOUYOU, with the audience in the dark. We also performed two stutter performances. It was a great context. Thank you Quim!
More on the program: http://mercatflors.cat/en/espectacle/session-5-irregular-section/
Pictures of Performance Maxigolf at Monophonic Festival, 23 May 2014
Monophonic Festival for Radiophonic creation; from 23 to 25 May 2014. With première of Maxigolf on 23 May, at 20:10 in Les Halles de Schaerbeek.
Monophonic is a festival for radiophonic creation organized by ASCR. For three days from 23 to 25 May 2014 the festival will take place in Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Novanois and les Ateliers Claus. I contribute in two ways. In the broadcast of Myriam Pruvot I present ‘Of Mice’, a short vocal piece that was created in the Lab Nature Calls, with Dolores Hulan, Johanna Paine, Jakob Ampe and me performing the singing mice. The piece is accompanied by an excerpt from Kafka’s story ‘Josephine’, that Myriam Pruvot selected in response to my work. The broadcast can be listened to in an installation during the whole festival at Les Halles de Schaerbeek.
Secondly, I perform in Maxigolf, by composer Alessandro Bosetti. A piece for 6 voices where the early radio culture of one mike, one speaker and no sound effects is the reference. Credits Direction and composition: Alessandro Bosetti; Performers: Anne-Laure Pigache, Keely Sigot, Jean Fürst-Esch, Myriam Van Imschoot, Myriam Pruvot, Matteo Mureddu; Sound engineer: Yvan Hanon.
More info on the festival: www.monophonic2014.be. The whole program can also be looked at in this pdf.
PREVIOUSLY IN 2014 (SELECTION)
Nature Calls, lab at Kunstencentrum Buda, from 12 to 16 May 2014. Organized by Sarma, with the support of Kunstencentrum Buda.
To this lab I invited a bird watcher from Natuurpunt, beatboxer Serdi Alici Faki and voice-technique teacher Johanna Peine to look at the way humans relate to their natural surroundings and imitate vocally what they find significant. Over a week 9 artists participated and also people from Kortrijk came to some open classes. With the participants I expanded the theme of voice imitation further, working with scores and improvisations. This lab was a pre-study to my group piece What Nature Says, which will première on 11 February 2015 in Kaaitheater.
Of Mikes and Speakers, at Pianofabriek, from 25 April to 30 April 2014. Organized by Sarma with the support by Pianofabriek.
‘Of Mikes and Speakers’ is a lab that I curate on the use of microphones and loudspeakers as artistic instruments in vocal performance. During 5 days, guest teachers and artists will guide various modules that alternately focus on vocal techniques, the technical side to the typology of mikes and speakers, as well as experiment with various set-ups together with composer Cathy Van Eck and sound artist Fabrice Moinet. More info: www.sarma.be
‘Excerpts archive’, 7 March 2014, Stichting Perdu, Amsterdam, 20:00
In an evening on the archive, curated by Herbert Ploegman, Myriam Van Imschoot brings excerpts from her art work that deal with the issue of the archive. On this occasion she will also perform Scrambled Speech again, a 8 minute long scratching of language as it splinters memory and the capacity to speak from a single perspective. Originally Scrambled Speech was part of Living Archive (2009), a solo dealing with a personal audio-archive, swaying between personal document and historical resonance. More info: http://www.perdu.nl/agenda/
Première of ‘Hola Hu with a Kucku added’, 21 February 2014, Gallery Skolska 28, Praag, 18:00
This vocal piece is a 45 minutes long extended version of the yodel duet ‘Hola Hu’, performed by Myriam Van Imschoot and Doreen Kutzke. Two known yodel phrases serve as a point of departure for a sonic experience that spirals into the heart of a vocal technique, while reframing its cultural legacy and acoustic imaginary. The performance is part of ‘Behind the voice’, an event curated by Marcus Bergner. More info: http://skolska28.cz/page.php?set_lang=en&event=717
‘Waving Brusilia’, 12 February 2014, Theater Scarabeus, Schaarbeek, 20:00, 5 euro entrance
LIFT and EFEMERIDEN, two videos that were made in the Brussels skyscraper Brusilia, will be screened during an evening that assembles architects and artists to discuss the role of high-rise development in a rapidly changing urban context. Organisation: Dienst Nederlandse Cultuur van de Gemeente Schaarbeek. With: Paul-Alexander Crop, Gui Polspoel, Eric de Kuyper, Jens Aerts, Leo van Broeck, Sven Stercken and Myriam Van Imschoot. More info: http://www.1030cultuur.be/nl/event/123/waving-brusilia
BIO
I make art work, whether video, performance or installation, across fields and their institutional limitations. From ‘found’ situations, documentary resources or cultural relicts I extract and isolate ‘forms’ that can speak anew. How humans aim to transmit and communicate, despite the lags of time and space, is an ongoing interest.
After her Language and Performance Studies, Myriam Van Imschoot worked as an artistic collaborator (dramaturge, performer, curator) with choreographers and visual artists like Meg Stuart, Philipp Gehmacher, Antonia Baehr, Aurélien Froment, etc. Since 2007 she came to present her art under her own name. The early works actively engage with the question of historiography and acoustic memory, mostly reconfiguring sound and interview archives. Collage and montage of documentary source material characterize the performances Pick up Voices (2009) and Living Archive (2011), the sound art installation Black Box (2009) but also the new media project Oral Site (2012) - a new software collage-instrument to integrate video, sound and text in a digital environment.
Sound plays an important role, whether she uses existing sound documents and footage or creates own vocal performances and compositions, like in the collaborations with visual artist Toine Horvers (Vozes de Magaio, 2011 and Singelstemmen, 2012) or her ongoing projects on the broken voice (Yodel Portraits, 2013 and Hola Hu, 2013).
Her interest in the medium of video grew from this engagement with documentation. Video featured as a component in installations (Black Box, 2009) or in the performance To Wave (2013). With LIFT she worked with Pablo Castilla as Director of Photography for her first short film. Dealing with the question of proximity and distance, absence and resonance, she pursues her interest in the way humans attempt to bridge the gaps.
Her work was supported by Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum Buda, Vooruit, Jan van Eyck Academie, Playground Stuk, Recyclart, Binaural Nodar Sound Arts Centre, Campo, Sculpture International Rotterdam, Pianofabriek and Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie. Besides these partners the work was also presented in MUU Galerie, Rumpsti Pumsti (Musik), Kran Film Collective, Suburban Video Lounge, Museo Reina Sofia, Rotterdam Opera Days, bookstores and yodel events.
LANDSCAPE
2011 Vozes de Magiao
2012 Singelstemmen
Landscape and sound are tightly connected, the one revealing the specificities of the other. In these outdoor works I alternate between different landscape types and sonic surroundings. In Vozes de Magaio the action terrain is the rural mountain area of Northern Portugal. In Singelstemmen it’s the urban environment in the Central Station area of Rotterdam that became the trigger for a vocal work for 12 performers based on a game structure. Both works involve ‘calling out’ and were created in collaboration with visual artist Toine Horvers.
INTERVIEW-BASED WORKS
2008 Pick up voices
2009 Black Box
2011 Living Archive
In interviews I connect with other stories, biographies and voices. I transmit the interviews in new contexts and compose with them as an art form. In Pick up Voices dancer Christine Desmedt reenacts interviews I conducted with Maria La Ribot, Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Bel and Mark Tompkins on improvisation; in the sound installation Black Box interviews are sampled in 3 minutes and a half long compositions, pressed on dubplates and presented in a jukebox. In the solo Living Archive I use interviews alongside home recordings from a long life collected sound archive. It’s a staged ‘hörspiel’ where I sample fragments from cassettes, minidiscs, reel to reels and mp3’s with the play devices as my co-actors on stage.
VIDEO & INSTALLATION
2008 Fax Film
2013 Lift
2012 Efemeriden
An important track in my work is ‘cinematic’ and explores the interplay of long shots, steady camera angles and minute events orchestrated in the course of time unfolding. My love for structuralist cinema is felt in FAX FILM, which films the pages with names rolling from a fax machine, giving an animated feel to language in motion. With hardly any editing and sound as an important vehicle it sets the ground for EFEMERIDEN and my first short film LIFT, both shot at the skyscraper where I am living. All videos were realized with Pablo Castilla behind the camera.
The broken voice
2013 Yodel Portraits
2013 Hola Hu
2014 Kucku
2013 Scrambled Speech
When making my solo Living Archive, I discovered in my archive an old recording of me as a child trying to imitate the yodeling of uncles at family reunions. Since I got fascinated by this ‘extended vocal technique’ and in a more larger sense, in all sort of practices involving ululation or the breaking of the voice. Hola Hu and Kucku are deconstructive duets that gradually decompose a well known yodel phrase into micro-elements until silence and the ‘inner song’ take over. In Yodel Portraits yodelers of various backgrounds give live and/or in video an account of their skills. They narrate and giving demonstrations. Scrambled Speech breaks language into its phonemes and morphemes, as if stammering.
RECENT WORKS
YOUYOUYOU 2014
2014 YOUYOUYOU Brussels version (28 November 2014), in the context of Metamorphosis at Beursschouwburg. An ensemble vocal piece for 12 local performers based on the arabic cry zaghareet.
2014 YOUYOUYOU Jaffa version (21 November 2014) in the context of Moves Without Borders. An ensemble vocal piece for 8 local performers based on the arabic cry Zaghareet.
WHAT NATURE SAYS 2015
Go and visit: http://www.hiros.be/en/artists/detail/myriam-van-imschoot
http://oralsite.be/pages/What_Nature_Says
Group piece/performance/radiophonic work, where 5 performers imitate the sounds of nature with their voice only. An a capella ofthe world.
THE WAVING
2013 The Waving
2013 Efemeriden
As an ongoing investigation I am working on the gesture of waving. This has become a trope that surfaces throughout my work, like in the solo Living Archive, the text-based performance The Waving Piece, or the video Efemeriden. Since 2012 I am waving for people at different places and times, every month.