THE BIRD GHOST AT THE ZAOUIA
Organisation: Zenith Foundation in partnership with Leighton House Museum
Time: 31 October 2011 10:00am - 05 November 2011 5:30pm
Place: Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Road, London W14
Zenith Foundation in partnership with Leighton House Museum Presents
The Bird Ghost at the Zaouia
An 8 channel sound art installation presented by Zenith Foundation in association with Leighton House Museum.
A description of the installation by the sound artist Seth Ayyaz:
"The Bird Ghost at the Zaouia" is a composed machine for listening, a shifting sonic body that references, comments upon and reconfigures a notional Islamic sonic-social world through the politicised materiality of sound.
I made many hours of recordings at various zaouia (sufi shrines), mosques and religious spaces in Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon while attending various prayers and ceremonies (adhan, salat, tilawa, dhikr, zar and lilat) between 2002 and 2010. At the request of the respective religious leaders, no "musical" material has been used. I found birds, resonant tails, breathes, winds, noise, overheard conversations, adhan and extraneous sounds floating in, sounds that where left behind.
Orientalisation of sound is a kind of sonic tourism that captures the 'ethnic' and colonises the ear. The history of Leighton House and its association with the Imperial period offers a special context in which to immerse your ears.
Seth Ayyaz lives in London and is composer performer spanning live electronics, free improvisation, noise, electroacoustics and Arabic music – principally nay (end-blown flute) ghaita (reed pipe) and hand percussion (darbuka and daf). Drawing on his background in neurosciences, his work is concerned with embodied perception and how this resonates across psychological and social spaces.
31 October - 5 November 2011
Leighton House Museum
12 Holland Park Road
London
W14 8LZ
Free | Museum admission applies | More Info