Program Notes:
DERELICT PORTENT
Jay Afrisando
—featuring gamin and Okvan Pramudya.
A solo music and multimedia performance,
July 23, 2022, at 7 pm EDT,
at the Center for Remembering and Sharing (CRS), New York.
DERELICT PORTENT showcases Jay Afrisando’s works in music composition and multimedia arts aimed to raise the awareness of aural diversity (diversity of hearing profiles), acoustic ecology, and everyday wonders often overlooked.
0) Rangkaian Pagi untuk Dikenang (Mornings to Reminisce)
2nd order ambisonics (360°) decoded into binaural, 2021
These are mornings to reminisce, when people celebrated the warmth of sunrise, when motor vehicles and loud machines started to awake, when field recording went wrong, when my low-noise mics couldn't even capture the tranquility of the acoustic environments, and when those birds still existed before hoomanz make them vanish.
1) Gendhing Cosmic
stereo live electronics (adapted from the 360° installation version), 2018
What if gamelan ‘living and being alive’ on earth—with its gravity that determines all the system therein—‘lives’ in outer space? This work reimagines how “pakem”—the principal guidelines derived and practiced from the Javanese gamelan tradition that acts as a gamelan's rule of the making—is ripped from the instrument, thereby scattering its original identity and making a new one; will it remain gamelan?
2) In Which to Trust
1-channel video & stereo audio (adapted from the 5-channel installation), 2022
Inviting us to rethink our understanding of sound, this work comprises videos and sound captions by five aurally diverse listeners revealing how the sonic sources—the acoustical energy—actually “sound” according to their diverse hearing apparatuses. These differences between the sonic sources and the various captioners’ interpretations leave us a choice of what we should refer to when talking about sound: the objects triggering the sensations, our hearing apparatuses, or both? In which will you trust?
3) Into the Space
Jay Afrisando (winds + body gestures) | gamin (Korean winds + body gestures), 2022
Everyone has their own social bubble, and this bubble can either stretch or shrink depending on the subjective contexts, which may respect or trespass another person’s bubble. “Into the Space” simulates the social bubbles we embody in our individual and communal lives.
4) Drama Kata-kata (Drama of Words)
2-channel fixed media (featuring 19 speakers of 18 languages), 2018
“Drama Kata-Kata” (Drama of Words) was created to capture two phenomena. First, we can ‘find’ music in languages we do not understand by listening to their rhythm, contour, intonation, timbre, and overall shapes within the speech. Second, we can ‘find’ music in languages we understand by listening to the words in verbatim loops.
5) T
Participatory piece using voice, 2020
Using words dominated by a consonant t, “T” is a simple exercise of creating the soundscape we intend. Human is the only species that can (or at least try to) understand the sonic environment and the other species’ behaviors. So, why won’t we use that advantage to improve our environment?
6) Aural Architecture
Joint-stereo audiovisual media, in collaboration with Jamil Haque and Gelsey Bell, 2022
“Aural Architecture” considers aural experiences originating in the mind communicated through sign language and voice. This work challenges two of the biggest misconceptions about deafness and sound: d/Deaf persons live in silence, and only hearing persons can access sound, both of which are inaccurate.
7) Satu (One)
Jay Afrisando (soprano sax) | Okvan Pramudya (snare), 2017
One of the paradoxes in this world is that, to be creative, sometimes we can apply a limitation to what we create. This limitation may paradoxically help us make cohesion while encouraging us to find aspects in which we can explore possibilities. In “Satu,” one tone/note and one melodic structure are consecutively imposed on two consecutive compositions.
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This event is a part of the Paradise Laboratory Concert Series collection by the CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and is supported in part by Jerome Foundation through Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship 2021-2022.