PERFORMANCE ARCHIVE / LINKS
POLYPHONY exhibition FUGUE audio-visual installation by Ellen Southern from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Ellen Southern showreel from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ FUGUE created for Polyphony: Experiments and Adventures in Voice 2011-16 Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, September 2016
A fugue in vocal music is where melodic themes enter one after another, layering, transforming, and re-combining in counterpoint to each other. This polyphonic (‘multi-vocal’) effect combines independent individual parts into a larger multi-layered work, which can almost seem to generate itself. A familiar example may be singing a rhyme like London’s Burning round and round in ‘canon’.
Inspired by this long-used vocal form, I have taken two projectors, with an audio-video work playing through each. So at any one time, two audios and two videos can be experienced, to form an ever-changing audio-visual polyphonic fugue of four ‘voices’. Four is a standard number in SATB choral music (soprano alto tenor bass).
Over the duration of the exhibition, the differing durations of the paired audio-visual works will subtly, gradually, and incrementally shift the looping repetitions in ever-changing combinations and juxtapositions.
Work in progress:
◦ SHOWREEL 2014
A selection of clips from 2011 onward, leading to a focus on Luminaire, a process-based performance inspired by the reverse engineering in 2006 of the earliest known vocal recording, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautogram of the folk lullaby Au Clare De La Lune (1860).
Luminaire, was performed in three versions, with varying degrees of pre-recording, liveness, and overlaying, over the course of a week in and around the Sallis Benney Theatre, Brighton for Unframed, the University of Brighton MA degree show 2013.
SELECTED PERFORMANCE WORKS
◦ HAUNTED VOICES Ellen Southern and Ensemble, Brighton Fringe Festval Haunted Voices - Ellen Southern and Ensemble - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ AT HER MUSIC Ellen Southern, solo performance installation
At Her Music - performed at the De La Warr Pavillion from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. At Her Music - Interim performance from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Research - At Her Music sketch from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ MONOCHORD Ellen Southern and Ensemble
Monochord - premiere of ensemble version - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Monochord - premiere of ensemble version from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Monochord - full version with hand held tape machines and ensemble from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
NIGHT SONGS Ellen Southern and Ensemble
Night Songs premiere performance from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Research - Night Songs variation - audio glitch from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ CREEPING BUTTERCUP Collaboration with dancer, poet and visual artist Clare Whistler
Creeping Buttercup AiRM Old Romney - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Round Sounds and Voice, work in progress for Creeping Buttercup from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
Creeping Buttercup - a percussion piece and acoustic sculpture from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
More about the original Creeping Buttercup commission for City of London Festival
◦ LUMINAIRE - Ellen Southern and Ensemble
Luminaire version I - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Luminaire version II - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Luminaire version III - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Reverse Singing from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
◦ OF THE BRILLIANT AND THE DARK - Ellen Southern and Ensemble
Of The Brilliant And The Dark - recording launch - short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Of The Brilliant And The Dark - remix song cycle - full performance from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Of The Brilliant And The Dark projection - Pearl and White from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. TransFormations a Brilliant and Dark remix event-short from Ellen Southern on Vimeo. Trans-Formations: a Brilliant and Dark remix event - slideshow movie from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
More about Of The Brilliant And The Dark
Free downloads Of The Brilliant And The Dark &
TRANSFORMATIONS: a BRILLIANT and DARK Remix Event
◦ WATERWEEK solo commission
Watervoices from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.
More about the WATERWEEK festivals
◦ TESTING GROUND - showcase interdisciplinary collaborative event, The Others, London
Testing Ground - slideshow movie from Ellen Southern on Vimeo.