Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound
Curated by Roya Amirsoleymani & Felisha Ledesma
Adee Roberson, Alison O’Daniel, bone lattice, Crystal Quartez, Hiro Kone, Kite & Robbie Wing, Lucy Liyou, Nivhek, Nyokabi Kariũki, Reese Bowes, Saint Abdullah, Sholeh Asgary, Synth Library Portland, Takashi Makino, Tomoko Sauvage
Exhibition Dates: February 17 - March 19, 2023
Gallery Hours: Friday, 12:00–6:00 pm / Saturday & Sunday: 12:00–4:00 pm
Modified Hours: March 3 & 4: 5:00–8:00 pm / March 5: 4:00–6:00 pm
Live Performances: March 3, 4, & 5
Workshops: February 18, March 6, and other various dates and times.
Open to All / Exhibition is Free / Masks Required
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
pica.org
Curatorial Letter
During your waking or sleeping life, bring yourself to attention with the thought “remembering and remembering to remember”. You might find yourself listening backward in time to a sound that you didn’t know that you heard!
- Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice (2005)
Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound takes many forms. Exhibition. Performances. Workshops. Residencies. Screenings. Flickers. Silence. Noise.
It is the hollow echo of an empty room. The spaciousness of a spare one. The energy after it empties out. It is the airy anticipation and the sticky residue. It is all, and some, and none of these things at once.
Remembering to Remember is a collection and collision of impressions and inquiries. We were curious what would happen if these artists and their work shared spaces–speakers, stages, surfaces; sequenced, adjacent, gathered; alone, together, with others. So we invited them to make new pieces, or revive old ones, or do something different, or do what they do.
What emerged is a multifaceted program of 15+ international, national, and local artists spanning six live performances; five newly commissioned multichannel compositions; four film/video works at the intersection of sound and moving image; and one month of community workshops and public engagements.
Just as we each experience the same sound subjectively, Remembering to Remember holds infinite possibilities for interpretation. It was an invitation to artists–and now to you–for individual, collective, and deep listening. To feel something. To pay attention. To re-remember.
Thank you for being here.
Roya Amirsoleymani and Felisha Ledesma
Curators, Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound
bone lattice
Kite + Robbie Wing
Reese Bowes
Saint Abdullah Nivhek
FILM & VIDEO
Saint Abdullah
Breathe (video)
2023
9min
This video accompanies Saint Abdullah’s multichannel composition.
Tomoko Sauvage
Barrissando
2020
7min
“Barrissando” is a fabricated musical term from the French verb, barrir, that signifies the cries of an elephant. Originally commissioned by Japan House Sao Paulo, curated by Chico Dub.
Material: Digital Video / Editing: Anne Laure Viaud / Color Correction: Nicolas Perret
Alison O’Daniel
The Tuba Thieves: The Plants are Protected.
2013
12min
Written, Directed, Edited by Alison O’Daniel based on a musical score by Christine Sun Kim. Cinematography by Meena Singh.
Gender Neutral Restrooms
Tomoko Sauvage Alison O’Daniel Takashi Makino Adee Roberson
Synth Library Portland
Saint Abdullah
Takashi Makino
Anti-Cosmos
2022
16min
Anti-Cosmos is a physical film for cinema. The soundtrack, which was primarily produced in the range of frequencies below 1000Khz, physically vibrates the viewer’s body. Anti-cosmos is similar to Noise, the power that breaks through the cosmos/order. Inspired by “Cosmos and Anti-Cosmos” by Japanese philosopher Toshihiko Izutsu.
Aspect: 2.35:1 / Format: 4KDCP, 4K mov / Sound: 5.1ch
Director/Producer: Takashi Makino / Sound Material: Lasse Marhaug, Lawrence English / Sound Edit, Composition: Takashi Makino Sound Mix: Takashi Makino, Iwao Yamazaki / Technical support: Bart Lab Supported By: Creators’ Workation, Ise City 2020, Project to Support Emerging Media Arts Creators Japan, 2022
Adee Roberson
offerings
2019
7min
offerings is a performance / video that asks, “what does it mean to be a stolen body on stolen land?”. Adee Roberson and keyon gaskin at Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum in Joshua Tree, California.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Synth Library Portland
Workshops and Drop-In Hours
While in residence during Remembering to Remember, Synth Library Portland will host multiple workshops open to everyone, offering both introductory hands-on teaching for beginners and instruction on how to create multi-channel sound compositions. In addition to workshops, Synth Library Portland will also provide informal open hours during which all are welcome to play with modular synthesizers and other electronic music equipment, and to meet our facilitators.
MULTICHANNEL COMMISSIONS
bone lattice
THE PROPHECY 2022
10:19min
With trepidation you enter through a cataract in the rock set with a heavy, ancient corroded door. It is immediately cold with a cutting dampness. Small animals scramble and flee, having been surprised by your intrusion. The crushing darkness oozes into you with a soft pressure like a misty cocoon. Whispers in the dark echo, beckoning. Blindly you follow. Who is following whom? Tread carefully.
Kite & Robbie Wing
owákhitȟaŋiŋ
2023
12:16min
Field recordings taken at dusk and dawn in the Stover Tióšpaye, near No Flesh Creek and Kyle Dam in Kyle, South Dakota.
A sound should pierce your flesh make you bleed
Purple coneflowers, dyer’s coreopsis, indian blanket Prairie, roots, systems reach down through time holding together the world we once knew
Reese Bowes
NCS_892 Drakens
2022
20:56min
NGC_892 Drakens is an aural composition that serves as a vehicle for this artist’s combined experience in cities he’s lived throughout his life and career - most notably Durban, Johannesburg, Brooklyn, Jacksonville, Detroit, and Portland – and their seemingly dystopic landscapes. Drakens refers to the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa (otherwise known as the Dragon’s Mountains).
(ANNEX)
Saint Abdullah
Breathe 2023
16:40min
Accompanying Video: “Breathe” (9min). 2022. Saint Abdullah in collaboration with Richard R. Ross.
Nivhek
ENGINE 2022
19:00min
Train and car engine noise from drag races at Portland International Raceway/ North Portland railway tracks; synth and other electronics.
ENGINE began inside a decade-long obsession with engine noise. The sound of excess, power, sex, destruction, capitalism, of oil becoming an airborne pollutant, of transformation, of life. Guttural bass and rev a mirror of organic rhythms— mimicking heartbeats, breathing, blood rushing. A spiral ode to symbiotic decay.
Nivhek will perform ENGINE (33 minutes) live on March 3, 2023 at PICA, accompanied by an original film of the same name by Takashi Makino. See pica.org for more information and to buy tickets.
Notes about The Who Cares Clock:
Conceived of and edited by PICA’s Artistic Director & Curator of Visual Art, Kristan Kennedy, The Who Cares Clock is a time-based print project released at random, for free, and only through the mail. For Remembering to Remember, Kennedy will release a special, limited edition postcard of sound work by artist and curator Felisha Ledesma, which will be playable by turntable. Stay tuned for an announcement of this project’s near-future release and instructions for how to request a copy.
(ANNEX)
Accessibility Notes:
The exhibition and performances in Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound contain sounds at a range of volumes and frequencies, some of which might be uncomfortable or unfamiliar. The sounds in the multichannel installation and live performances are experienced throughout the space, while film and video works use individual headphones. Free earplugs will be available at the entrance to the gallery and for live shows. You may exit and re-enter at any time at no cost.
Masks are required in the gallery and for all live performances and workshops.
To request accommodations or inquire about access needs for Remembering to Remember’s exhibition and /or performances, please email madison@pica.org.
The curators would like to thank:
All of the artists in R2R: Adee Roberson, Alison O’Daniel, Anthony A. Dunn, Crystal Cortez, Liz Harris, Lucy Liyou, Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh, Mohammad Mehrabani-Yeganeh, Nicky Mao, Nyokabi Kariũki, Reese Bowes, Robbie Wing, shawné michaelain holloway, Sholeh Asgary, Suzanne Kite, Synth Library Portland, Takashi Makino, Tomoko Sauvage
Synth Library Portland artists, members, and workshop instructors: Aaron Guice, AFRORACK, Crystal Quartez, Francisco Botello, Helen Spencer-Wallace, Kelly Rauer, Kevin Holden, Matthew Rempes, Thomas Fang, Yaw Evans
All PICA staff and crew, especially: Alan Cline, Allison Knight-Blaine, Arminda Gandara, Ashley Schmidt, Dan Bouthot, Erin Boberg Doughton, Erté DeGarces, Hannon Welch, Irene Ramirez, Jake Powell, Jakob Dawahare, Jeff Hu, Kristan Kennedy, L Quezada, Leslie Vigeant, Madison Hames, Mami Takahashi, Mat Larimer, Molly Gardner, Rory Breshears, Samantha Ollstein, Shaun Keylock, Urks Kurth, Van Pham, and a very special thank you to Victoria Frey, PICA’s phenomenal and fearless outgoing leader of over twenty years.
PICA’s Board of Directors, supporters, and community partners, especially André Middleton and Friends of Noise.
Funders and sponsors, including Crowne Plaza Hotel, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, and PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab presentation funds through the Mellon Foundation.
Very special thanks to: Ahamefule J. Oluo, Crystal Cortez, Myles de Bastion and CymaSpace, Erica Thomas, Ess Mattisson, Lindy West, Tim Westcott, Vanessa Calvert, Michael Smythe, Tom Burnett, Patrick Leyshock, and Michael Fontanarosa
PICA is sincerely grateful to Paul Stewart, Eric Daubney, and the whole team at Genelec for their generous loan of high-quality speakers, subwoofers, and related equipment for display of the multichannel sound commissions in this exhibition.
PICA: 15 NE Hancock St., Portland, Ore., 97212 IG: @picapdx / FB: @picapdx / TW: @P_I_C_A
PICA is situated on the traditional homelands of the Multnomah, Oregon City Tumwater, Watlala, Wasco, Kathlamet, Cowlitz, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other Indigenous peoples both recorded and unrecorded.
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