Eirik Havnes & Lars Ove Fossheim

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Dokkhuset / Concert May 18 @ 20.00 / Doors open 19.30
Tickets NOK 190/250 here

Alt som lever skal dø (Every living thing will die)

Eirik Havnes [NO] & Lars Ove Fossheim [NO]

Every living thing will die is a performance that asks, and even attempts to answer, a lot of answerless questions. 

Are we humans still a part of nature, or have we parted and are now looking at nature from the outside, rather trying to manage it? What kind of value is there in all our knowledge about math, philosophy, art and technology? Will there still be any value left in a world without humans to observe it? That world will exist at some point in time. Either in a hundred or a hundred thousand years, there will be a world without us. If humanity, our greed and our cognitive abilities have been developed by evolution, does that imply that letting humans destroy the climate simply will be an act of letting evolutions take its course? 

Every living thing will die is a text based performance, about the relationship between humans and nature and how they relate. The text is written by Eirik Havnes, music by Lars Ove Fossheim and Eirik Havnes for a quartet of them and drummer Martin Langlie and tubaist Heida Karine Johannesdottir Mobeck. 

Eirik Havnes is a poet that brings existential thoughts and problems into an everyday conversation, in an unique and informal mix of rhyming poetry and well timed monologues. A format he found and perfected in the 2020 live recorded show “Life” that describes a life from conception till death. This time around he focuses on not a singular life, but life on earth in general, humanity as a concept and the absurdity of life, in a high paced enchanting monologue. 

The music is a playful mix of 80s retrofuturism, science fiction, harsh noise, field recordings and fundamental music principles found in enthic music from all over the world. A musical journey that combines the obviously technological, structured and digital with the chaotic, organic and natural. 

Text: Eirik Havnes
Music: Lars Ove Fossheim

Band:
Lars Ove Fossheim, guitar, electronics
Eirik Havnes, guitar, electronics
Martin Langlie, drums, electronics
Heida Karine Johannesdottir Mobeck, tuba, electronics

The performance is a commissioned work for Meta.Morf 2022 under the auspices of Jazzfest and TEKS – Trondheim Elektroniske Kunstsenter.

Supported by Arts Council Norway.

Eirik Havnes & Lars Ove Fossheim
Eirik Havnes er en poet, musiker, komponist og lydkunstner fra Ålesund som de siste årene har jobbet med natur som et gjennomgående tema innen alle sine kunstretninger. 

Dokumentarfilmen Polyfonatura fra 2019 tar for seg hans arbeid med feltopptak som musikalske instrumenter, mens Livet av Havnes fra 2020 er en poesifilm som har definert Havnes som en nyskapende formidler av aktuelle filosofiske og politiske spørsmål. Havnes ble nominert til Edvard-prisen for teksten til Livet.

Lars Ove Fossheim er en gitarist og komponist fra Volda med en fot innen kunstrock og en annen innen minimalitisk samtidsmusikk. Han har utmerket seg som en nyskapende gitarisk via band som Broen, Skadedyr, Snøskred og Your Headlights are On, med fokus på klang, tekstur og en utvidelse av gitarens.

Eirik Havnes is a poet, musician, composer and sound artist from Ålesund who in recent years has worked with nature as a recurring theme in all his art directions. The documentary Polyfonatura from 2019 deals with his work with field recordings as musical instruments, while The Life of Havnes from 2020 is a poetry film that has defined Havnes as an innovative communicator of current philosophical and political issues. Havnes was nominated for the Edvard Prize for the text of Life.

Lars Ove Fossheim is a guitarist and composer from Volda with one foot in art rock and another in minimalist contemporary music. He has excelled as an innovative guitarist via bands such as Broen, Skadedyr, Snøskred and Your Headlights are On, with a focus on sound, texture and an extension of the guitar.

eirikhavnes.no

Header Graphics and Portrait Photograph: Christian Winther.

Stine Janvin

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Dokkhuset / Concert May 20 @ 20.30 / Doors open 20.30
Double concert night! Including VASSVIK: VASSVIK MEETS OMNI ANIMA / A FOOT IN BOTH WORLDS @ 22.00 / Tickets 240/300 here

Fake Synthetic Music

Stine Janvin [NO]

Fake Synthetic Music is a concert performance, an artistic method, a record release and an ongoing exploration of the voice as instrument. Inspired by composers such as Evol, Marcus Schmickler and Maryanne Amacher, Janvin’s interest is aimed towards a physical experience of the architectural and theatrical aspects of sound, light and performance.

The acoustic voice produces simple melodic sequences. A condensed, sinewave-like sound references electronic pop, trance and techno, and the underlying idea is to create a massive physical sound experience from a single mono signal of a human voice. The sound of the voice through the microphone combines with a digital echo so that the direct signal and the digital echo play together. According to Janvin, this creates continuous difference tones that stimulate otoacoustic emissions in the listener. In performance, the entire room is filled with smoke and lit solely by four strobe lights with yellow filters. The light is triggered by the echo effect via MIDI, and the strobes flash in various rhythmic patterns designed and programmed by Morten Joh.

The audience is completely immersed in the smoke that is filled with sound and light, and the totality might provide an experience reminiscent of synesthesia or trance.

Stine Janvin
Stavanger-born vocalist, performer and sound artist Stine Janvin works with the extensive flexibility of her voice, and the ways in which it can be used to channel physicality of sound. Created for variable spaces from theatres, to clubs and galleries, and more recently websites and digital platforms, the backbone of Janvin’s projects focus on exploring performance formats, vocal instrumentation and potential dualities of the natural versus artificial, tangible/digital, and minimal/dramatic.

stinesthetics.com

Header Graphics: “Fake Synthetic Music” by Stine Janvin. Photo credit: Karina Gytre.
Portrait Photograph: Jasper Kettner.

VASSVIK

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Dokkhuset / Concert May 20 @ 22.00
Double concert night! Including STINE JANVIN: FAKE SYNTHETIC MUSIC @ 20.30 / Doors open 20.00 / Tickets 240/300 here

VASSVIK meets Omni Anima

In this evening concert the Sami musician and throat singer Torgeir Vassvik will merge and transform his singing with the interactive Omni Anima holophonic sound installation. The result is a spectacular transformation of Dokkhuset (the concert venue) into an immersive and visceral sound chamber, resonating with the magic of Sami Joik.

After an introductory opening performance Vassvik will continue with the onstage concert A foot in both worlds before the audience will be invited to interact with and play the Omni Anima installation themselves.

Omni Anima

The Omni Anima project is a cross artistic collaboration between Torgeir Vassvik, artist Stahl Stenslie and artistic programmer Thom Johansen. Inspired by the enchanted, mystical, even seductive sound of joik, the project investigates how the traditional and indigenous expression of the Sami joik can be compiled, transformed, processed and shared through interactive electronic media.

Based on the magic awakening in traditional Sami joik, Omni Anima seeks to create magical sound experiences in the cross-over between ancient shamanism and new technology. The ancient joik is transformed through interactive holophonic multichannel sound systems. Via a touch-sensitive spherical instrument built as a traditional Sami drum, joik is composed into a three-dimensional world of sound in real time.

OMNI ANIMA seeks to put the audience in a state of trance like the noaiden, the Sami shaman, uses the joik to achieve. The traditional function of the trance is to send one’s spirit on trips to other places and worlds. In a similarly inspired manner, the project’s ambition is to create stimulating sound experiences that come alive in and through the audience. Hence, Omni Anima’s Latin title: ‘Everything’ (omni) and ‘Spirit’ (anima), that is, ‘everything is spirited’. 

To engage and convey to an audience what joik is meant to be -voices from another world- the joik is transformed and disseminated through the use of an interactive and encompassing multi-channel, holophonic audio system. Omni Anima uses electronic media to enhance the bodily experiences of the music and make the most of the joik’s voice power. Through the immersive and physical sound experience the listeners themselves are dressed in the spirit of the animal.  The project is thus aimed at a new and sensorial identification with the joik’s magic.

From a cultural perspective, Omni Anima seeks to enhance the dissemination of original forms of joik. How can new technologies contribute to the magic experience of traditional forms of expression? Here Omni Anima works towards joik being experienced as an intimate, rich and rewarding physical experience in itself and for all.

A foot in both worlds

VASSVIK [Sápmi/Norway]

Loleiloleilola. Breath of a newborn. Sigh of a mountain. Ananeinaoianeina. Rumble of the sea. Creak of an open door in the wind. Neijinaneijino. Hum of a sun in December. All is alive and connected, and Joik is the essence of it. Joik is a place, a person, an animal, a flower, a state of mind. 

With his band VASSVIK the circumpolar Sami sound poet Torgeir Vassvik develops new visions of the animistic Joik, the vocal art of the Sami indigenous people of Northern Europe. He embeds it into an Arctic avant-garde sound. It is rooted in folk, classical, jazz and impro music. Torgeir’s Joik reveals deep and beautiful vibrations and overtones of the human soul, resonating with progressive, playful, groovy expressions on guitar, Sami frame drum, violins and sound design. These are vocal and percussion rituals updated for the 21st century. New music, created out of our most ancient traditions. Joikscapes of a sub-urban coastal Sami.

Please, experience Joiks of friendship and feminine power, death and love, darkness and pollution, stone labyrinths and drifting wood at the Arctic coastline. Experience the most powerful things in nature. Experience voodoo against Arctic oil drilling. Experience the world view of indigenous peoples as a key to change the world. Nature is not an enemy, but a friend. Bring out the good now, for the best in the future.

All of us become part of the concert. The room is explored together. There is interaction between the artists and everybody who is present. Traditional borders between stage and audience room disappear. The spaces between the thoughts get larger. Doors to different worlds open up. Let cruelty sleep for a while. Super naive. Super smart. VASSVIK.

VASSVIK
Vassvik is the crew around mastermind Torgeir Vassvik. The Sami musician, Joik artist and composer was born and raised in Gamvik, Sápmi/Norway and now lives mainly in Oslo. His first and main instrument is the voice in all its facets, based on the Sami Joik. He grew up with the mandolin music of his father, trained himself on the guitar, played in indie rock bands, uses prepared guitars, bass, munnharpe, flutes, horns and the Sami frame drum.

vassvik.com

Stahl Stenslie
Stahl Stenslie is an artist, curator and researcher, specializing in experimental art, embodied experiences and disruptive technologies. His research and practice focus on the art of the recently possible – such as panhaptic communication, somatic sound and holophonic soundspaces, and disruptive design for emerging technologies. In 1993 he built the cyberSM experiment, the first tactile, cybersex communication system in the world. He has been exhibiting and lecturing at major international events (ISEA, DEAF, Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH) and moderated symposiums like Ars Electronica (Next Sex), ArcArt and Oslo Lux. He represented Norway at the first Ichihara Biennial, Japan, the 5th biennial in Istanbul, Turkey, co-organized 6cyberconf and won the Grand Prize of the Norwegian Arts Council. As a publisher he is the editor of EE – Experimental Emerging Art magazine (eejournal.no), he has written numerous scientific articles and co-founded The Journal of Somaesthetics (somaesthetics.aau.dk). His PhD on Touch and Technologies (virtualtouch.wordpress.com).

stenslie.net

Portrait Photograph (VASSVIK): Alex Bruun.