Forest, Brisbane by Thomas Köner & Lawrence English
I created this piece after returning from Brisbane, for a cycle of psychogeographic field recordings, of which parts have been published as La Barca CD & Vinyl in 2009. Forest, Brisbane is a previously unreleased part of the cycle.
La Barca refers here to the solar barque, or sun boat, which passes through the realms of the underworld (Duat according to Egyptian mythology) each night to reappear in the east every morning. During two years of my travels I tried to create a sonic cartography of the places I visited.
Hearing the bellbirds in Brisbane Forest was a magical experience. I had been puzzled for years by a Marcel Proust passage that I had copied in my notebook, wondering: how would that sound? - “Divisant la hauteur d'un arbre incertain, un invisible oiseau s'ingéniait à faire trouver la journée courte, explorait d'une note prolongée, la solitude environnante, mais il recevait d'elle une réplique si unanime, un choc en retour si redoublé de silence et d'immobilité qu'on aurait dit qu'il venait d'arrêter pour toujours l'instant qu'il avait cherché à faire passer plus vite.” – and there it was: a standstill of time conducted by an invisible bird. The imaginary and the real suddenly melted together, and I was too moved to operate my sound recorder properly.
The bellbirds that you hear in this piece were recorded by Lawrence English, who was also guiding us through the Brisbane Forest.
Tracklist
| 1. | Forest, Brisbane | 5:20 |
Credits
Photography by Thomas Köner
License
All rights reserved.Tags
Thomas Köner's works are audiovisual meditations that explore our notion of time, memory and location. He invites audiences to enjoy impressions of depth, distance and disappearance, and to fathom the qualities of the space around our limits of perception. As a media artist, Thomas Köner is working across the spheres of composition, visual arts, installation and music production.