Hau: a form of bistability (2013)
Stereo fixed audio
The speakers/headphones should take sounds at 50hz. This work uses very quiet sounds and the low frequency content often makes things rattle: headphones could be the only solution to listen to this music in a normal listening environment.
Part 1 - Establishment (18.21)
Part 2 - The giver and the receiver (5.32)
Performances:
- 10-Dec-2014 - Acousmatic for the People, Inter Arts Center, Malmö, Sweden.
- 24-Apr-2015 - Intonal Festival, Inter Arts Center, Malmö, Sweden.
- 25-Jun-2015 - Sincronie, Spazio O', Milan, Italy.
- 7-Jan-2017 - San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Victoria Theatre, San Francisco, USA.
Notabilia:
- Out of 200 submissions for Acousmatic for the People, this work was the only one selected to be re-performed shorlty after at the Intonal Festival.
- Among the winners of the Headscape Competition of Sincronie dedicated to music for headphones.
I shall tell you about hau. Hau is not the wind. Not at all. Suppose you have some particular object (taonga) and you give it to me; you give it to me without a price. We do not bargain over it. Now I give this thing to a third person who after a time decides to give me something in repayment for it (utu), and he makes me a present of something (taonga). Now this taonga I received from him is the spirit (hau) of the taonga I received from you and which I passed on to him. The taonga which I receive on account of the taonga that came from you, I must return to you. It would not be right on my part to keep these taonga whether they were desirable or not. I must give them to you since they are the hau of the taonga which you gave me. If I were to keep this second taonga for myself I might become ill or even die. Such is hau, the hau of personal property, the hau of the taonga, the hau of the forest. Enough on that subject.