Active since 2000, Liquid Architecture is a Naarm (Melbourne) based organisation supporting experimental, interdisciplinary and critical work addressing sound and listening in context.
Our program stages encounters and creates spaces for sonic experience, and critical reflection on sonority and systems of sonic affect. To do this, we host experiences at the intersection of contemporary art and experimental music, supporting artists to produce performances and concerts, exhibitions, talks, reading groups, workshops and recordings in art spaces, music venues and other sites.
Liquid Architecture is curatorially driven and our methodology embraces research, collaborations and imaginations. We want to echo beyond local conversations, problems, debates and questions, to reverberate across media and disciplines, and so to sound out new discourses about the audible world, and beyond.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung as the Traditional Owners and sovereign custodians of the Country on which we practice. We extend our respects to their Elders past and present, and to all First Peoples.
Team
BOARD
NARETHA WILLIAMS (INTERIM CO-CHAIR) is an accomplished practitioner in the Australian creative industries sector. An established artist and music producer, she is a seasoned industry professional with extensive experience across a dynamic range of appointments. Naretha has worked with leading Australian companies and First Nations initiatives, flagship festivals and events, has toured internationally and won several awards. Credits include: St Kilda Festival, Bless Your Blak Arts Festival, Australasian World Music Expo, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival, Science Gallery London, Chunky Move, Performance Space New York, The Melba Spiegeltent, Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ, Sydney Myer Music Bowl, Sydney Dance Company, and Melbourne’s Flash Forward.
DANNY BUTT (INTERIM CO-CHAIR) is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Practice at Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where he is also Graduate Research Convenor for Design and Social Practice. His book Artistic Research in the Future Academy was published by Intellect/University of Chicago Press in 2017, and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Artistic Research.
ANDY MILLER (DIRECTOR) currently works as the General Manager of Multicultural Arts Victoria. Initially trained as a painter at the Canberra School of Art, Andy Miller worked in theatre for a number of years before working to establish arts programs in the community sector. Following a few years as an arts and cultural officer at two local governments, Andy began a career in the state public service in various senior roles at Arts Victoria and Creative Victoria and was seconded for a period with Creative Partnerships Australia, as Senior Programs Manager. As well as a Bachelor in Fine Arts, he has a Masters in Public Policy and a Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from the University of Melbourne.
MARK NOLEN (TREASURER) is a Certified Practising Accountant with extensive experience in the creative industries sector. He is currently Management Accountant at ACMI, having previously worked in a similar role at Film Victoria. Along the way, he has helped countless singers, actors, and even clowns get their taxes in order – no laughing matter! When not crunching numbers, you can find Mark sitting back with a fine drop of Scotch whisky, soaking up some even finer tunes.
LEANA PAPAELIA (SECRETARY) is a barrister at the Victorian Bar and a soprano. At the Bar, Leana practices in commercial and public law with a focus on banking and financial services regulation, corporations and securities, insolvency, trade practices and human rights. Leana holds an AMusA and a BMus (Hons) majoring in vocal performance. She received a university scholarship to complete her honours and, in her final year of study, was awarded the Horace Keats Memorial Prize for Excellence in Vocal Performance. Leana currently studies under the direction of Loris Synan OAM. Leana is a board member of the Australian Contemporary Opera Company and has held board positions with Lawyers for Animals, an organisation dedicated to improving the welfare of animals through education and law, and Right Now, an independent not-for-profit mediation organisation focusing on human rights issues in Australia.
NAOMI VELAPHI (DIRECTOR) is an arts producer born on Whadjuk Noongar country, residing in Naarm (Melbourne). She strives to nurture artists’ work and practices exploring alternative narratives, radical thought and deep connection. Centred on producing the work of contemporary, diverse, and interdisciplinary artists her experience spans working for and amongst galleries, festivals, and performance spaces. Naomi has over ten years of experience in the industry and has worked across all facets of arts production including curation, funding, and budget management and audience development. She is currently Senior Producer at Next Wave and has also held producing roles for a number of arts institutions including APAM, Arts House, The Abbotsford Convent, and Koorie Heritage Trust. Through her independent practice she aims to unearth honest and generous collaborations between artists, producers, curators, and presenters and create pathways for new work creation. Her curatorial interests are derived through her experiences as a woman of african and asian identities and the communities she represents. She holds a Masters of Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne and is a part of the Australia Council Arts Leadership Program 2020.
DAVID CHESWORTH (DIRECTOR) is an artist and composer, known for his experimental, and at times minimalist music, who has worked with electronics, contemporary ensembles, film, theatre, and experimental opera. Together with Sonia Leber, David has created installation artworks using sound, video, architecture and public participation. Exhibitions include ‘56th Venice Biennale (2015), ‘19th Biennale of Sydney (2014), and Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013-14). Festivals featuring Chesworth’s music and sound works include Ars Electronica; Festival D’Automne de Paris; Bang on a Can Marathon, New York, Biennale of Sydney; Adelaide and Melbourne Festivals; and MONA FOMA. Early in his career he was co-founder of post-punk band Essendon Airport and for five years was coordinator of the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, Melbourne. David is a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne, researching auditory archives.
CAT HOPE (DIRECTOR) is a researcher, composer, performer, songwriter, and noise artist. She is a flautist and experimental bassist who plays as a soloist and as part of other groups. She is the director of and performer in Decibel: a group focused on Australian repertoire, the nexus of electronic and acoustic instruments and graphic score realisations. In 2011 and 2014, Cat won the APRA|AMC Award for Excellence in Experimental Music, and for 2014 she was resident at the Peggy Glanville Hicks composers house, and is a Civitella Ranieri and Churchill Fellow. She is co-author of Digital Art – An Introduction to New Media (Bloomsbury) and Professor of Music at Monash University.
MONICA LIM (DIRECTOR) is a Melbourne-based pianist and composer of classical contemporary and experimental music. Born in Malaysia and then migrating to Australia in her teens, Monica initially practiced as a Tax Consultant for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, before pursuing her own interests in business and the arts. She has produced work for theatre, contemporary dance, installations, and film, as well as solo and ensemble instrumental pieces. She is interested in new cross-disciplinary genres and forms as well as combinations of new technology with music. Monica is currently undertaking a PhD at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne in interactive technology, AI and gesture-led composition. Monica is co-founder of Project Eleven, a philanthropic initiative which supports the contemporary arts and serves on the boards of the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Substation and Liquid Architecture as well as the Member’s Council for Musica Viva.
STAFF
Georgia Hutchison (Executive Director, CEO)
Debris Facility (Creative Producer)
Rohan Rebeiro (Creative Producer)
Liang Luscombe (Editor)
Mara Schwerdtfeger (Digital Producer)
Casey (Nicholls-Bull) Jones (Digital Producer)
Contact
We welcome conversation, ideas and feedback at any time.
info@liquidarchitecture.org.au
TW, FB, IG, YT, MX, SC
Journal, Podcast
104/35 Johnston Street
Collingwood VIC 3066
AUSTRALIA
LIQUID ARCHITECTURE
SOUND INC
ABN 73128090237
ASN A0050679K
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Lin Chi-Wei: Tape Music
Lin Chi-Wei is a legend of Taiwanese sonic art, whose practice incorporates folklore culture, noise, ritual, and audience participation. He is a founding member of Zero and Sound Liberation Organization, pioneering groups for experimental music in Taiwan, and in 2012 published Beyond Sound Art: The Avant Garde, Sound Machine and the Modernity of Hearing, which analyses the aesthetic condition of sound and art in a post-colonial East Asian context.
At Collingwood Art Precinct, Chi-Wei will initiate an iteration of his participatory sound work, Tape Music, in which vocal volunteers pass a ribbon score containing 666 words from hand to hand, reading and vocally responding as the ribbon passes, becoming a ‘human tape machine’.
LA: We have observed a certain tension weaving through your work Tape Music. This piece represents an ongoing attempt by you to explore how a group of humans may be assembled into a ‘machine of sound’, but it does this, critically, through a polyphonic process that is constitutively social, tactile and communal (i.e. kind of ultimately and irreducibly human)? How do tensions between the machinic and human play out in your work?
“Well, I think these are exactly the essential questions the Tape Music raises.
Between 2004 to 2013, Tape Music has only been played by audiences. There have been around 100 sessions and more than 2000 people have participated. People from primary schools, temples, churches, factories, local governments, neighborhoods, folk music groups, empowerment groups, training groups, and also visitors and audiences of museums, music festivals, bars and venues. As you can see, there are individual participants (such as in the museum) and people from different communities in different occasions.
For me the interesting thing is to see how these temporal gatherings turn into an aural community in a very short time! As a rule of the game I normally give no explanation nor instruction to the audience. I just pass the ribbon with embroidered words made of meaningless phonetics (without pitches) to the audiences and see what is going to happen. As you can imagine, people must react to it firstly by direct instinct (not every audience likes to do the performance by themselves), then by seeing how the others react to it, and trying (or refusing to try) to find a role in the playing.
To give an example: In 2007 in a Tape Music session in a local community in Stockholm, most of the (elder) people had naturally found their own place in the harmonic series, while a younger girl made annoying cat noises all the time (which was not part of the notation). In the artist talk after the performance, the participants were delighted when I told them they made probably the most “harmonic” performance I had ever experienced. They started a long talk after my comments concerning the ideas of the Swedish term lagom (which means ‘just the right amount’). The idea may also relate to the Viking practice of equal food divisions as well as modern Swedish democracy! For me personally, I think the meowing girl was doing her job perfectly.
There are also contradictory cases: In a Japanese electronic factory of Shenzhen, China, a folk music group (supported by the factory owner, whose members are also labourers in the enterprise) were invited to participate in the session in their repetition room. Throughout, no-one emitted a word, they just silently transferred the ribbon without making any noise for 15 minutes. The fact is that they were paid to work as musicians-labourers, and if there is no instruction given, they just won’t work ….. It is essential to see how the community organises and also how they don’t organise….In Hong Kong I found another radical version of Tape Music for no-one ever to hear or dare to do!
If we consider society as a machine, Tape Music could probably work as a kind of sonore diagram of the inner circuits.”
Print material designed by U-P
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Taungurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and the Wathaurung people of the Kulin Nation as the custodians of the land in which this event takes place, and we recognise that sovereignty was never ceded. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.Partners
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