Nour Sokhon
Artist | Sound Designer | Composer | Moving Image
2019
Game State
“Port Talbot football match reimagined by Nour Sokhon.”
"The composition commences with snapping sounds resembling the big asymmetrical claws of a shrimp. A constant beat is present throughout most of the soundscape to create tension and rhythm in order to heighten the suspense of the race. Radio signals interrupt fragments of the overall soundscape acting as a beam that is broadcasting the live game from a distant memory."
Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words
Remix_soloextract_ConfirmHumanity
“Remix_soloextract_ConfirmHumanity” is composed from a deconstructed collection of traumatic voice recordings from anonymous individuals stories which come from different regions of the world. Fragments of the recordings are used to discuss how traumatic moments play a key role in igniting individuals vices as it is vital for individuals to be more empathetic with one another; to hear each other in order for this moment of shock not to evolve into an infectious vice which could engulf an individuals physiological wellbeing. Field recordings of ambience are manipulated live to derange the listeners sensorial experience, allowing them to reflect on how their personal traumas have activated unexpected vices.
I would like to thank all the people that contributed to the creation of this work.
Remix_soloextract__ConfirmHumanity was presented at the POP Montreal International Music Festival in Montreal, Canada, as a part of XX Files installation on September 2019.
The solo extract was taken from a collaborative performance I did with Freya Edmondes at Institut Francais du Liban in May 2019 for Vices & Validations an exhibition/ performance curated by Haven for Artists.
Heya Project: Documentary film screening/installation (Excerpt)
A live networked sonic collaboration between the UK and Lebanon via LiveSHOUT and Locus Sonus maps. The recording and video was presented at the Sound in Motion conference at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Further information can be found here: https://sound-density-environment.com/workshop-sound-in-motion/
In Patnership with Norient – Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture. www.norient.com
Jilliene Sellner & Nour Sokhon
Choices | Keynote Speaker
“This album is brought to you by Musicians Unite to End FGM (MUTEFGM) and Tse Tse Fly Middle East. These Are Our Friends Too is a unique album that highlights the work FORWARD does towards ending FGM (female genital mutilation). The album continues FORWARD’s These Are Our Friends project, a collection of poetry from young people from London, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham that responds to the themes of FGM and its consequences. The first stage of the project resulted in a book of the same name that features more than thirty pieces of work, a short film made with Media Trust, and this new collaboration sees nineteen of the poems re-imagined.
Tse Tse Fly Middle East hand-picked a selection of female artists and musicians, and each one was given a spoken word recording of one of the poems read by members of the FORWARD team and poets from the book. The artists then composed and recorded a sonic background for their designated piece, with the resulting spoken word and experimental music compositions making up this new, nineteen-track set, These Are Our Friends Too.
The album was released on September 20, 2019, it features contributions from some of the foremost female proponents of noise from Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Serbia, Bulgaria and Sweden, as well as UK-based collaborators. And the visceral, uncompromising and unsettling tracks that result reflect the disturbing nature of female genital mutilation.”
Everyone involved has given their time for free, with all proceeds from sales of the album going directly to FORWARD.
Choices - composer: Nour Sokhon (Lebanon) / writer: Cherrelle Salmon / read by: Cherrelle >> The track was broadcasted on BBC Radio 3 Late Junction in London, UK on Oct 2019.
Keynote Speaker - composer: Nour Sokhon (Lebanon) / writer: Rashida Sanni / read by: Cherrelle
Drown Out The Other (excerpt)
An improvised set that took place at Frequent Defect composed of poetry and soundscapes that reflects the oppression present in the Arab world which drives individuals to protest.
Poetry: Dayna Ash Sound: Nour Sokhon
Concrete Expansion of Space
A site-specific moving image installation produced and exhibited at Bauernhof Grüna residency in Germany. “Concrete Expansion of Space” explores the relationship between urban and rural environments. The tunnel acting as a bridge for two bodies in space to converse using in situ elements.
Created by NStant.
The moving image work is available for viewing upon request.
Live at Bauernhof Grüna | Live at UDK Rundgang - Nstant
Both live sets are an improvisation of NStant’s (Nour Sokhon & Stephanie Merchak) album entitled “Frequencies within” which was produced at Bauernhof Grüna residency in Germany.
“Frequencies within” is an album inspired by the lack of green public spaces present in Beirut, the capital city of both artists homeland. Stress and anxiety levels are extremely high in Beirut due to the cities ongoing political, ecological and economical issues. “Frequencies within” is composed of data (interviews, plants electrical signals (using a bio-sonification device) and field recordings) they collectively gathered from the Grüna region during their time Bauernhof Grüna residency in Germany. The space provided both artists with the opportunity to explore the sonic relationship that they share with the natural world which they could not explore in Beirut, due to the cities high level of noise pollution and lack of green spaces.
"Frequencies within” varies each time it is performed depending upon the location it is performed in, as there are two agents being affected. The first factor is the plant’s electricity as it changes depending on its physiological state. The second factor is the site specific field recordings collected from the Grüna region that are constantly being reinterpreted depending on the plant’s reaction to the venue of the live performance.
To tune in click here >>> Live at Bauernhof Gruna - NStant
To tune in click here >>> Live at UDK Rundgang - NStant
The full album “Frequencies within” is available for listening upon request.
Almost Poetic Matters of Grey | Forest Frequencies
“Almost Poetic Matters of Grey” played beneath Carol Que essay reading on Material Speculation looking at the artist Morehshin Allahyari on reconstructing destroyed cultural artefacts by 3d printing.
To tune in forward the online broadcast 102.7FM 3RRR Digital in Melbourne to 36:42 - 42:06
“Forest Frequencies” played underneath a reading by Roukaya Hassoun first in Arabic and then in English of a poem called Passport by Mahmoud Darwish.
To tune in forward the online broadcast 102.7FM 3RRR Digital in Melbourne to 59:33 - 01:07:20
Fragments of The Unheard
A sonic representation of Koumaria’s audio archive through a spatial sound installation. The original archived audio is manipulated to form a malleable soundscape, it is then dispersed through speaker drivers, horns translucent tubing, air valves and air splitters into different spaces throughout an Olive Factory. A bed of environmental sound conditions the space through various resonant machinery & metal housings. Sound proceeds through air valves and air splitters to singular tubes hung in space, the longer the length of tube, the more blurred the sonic material becomes. Each tube can be listened to individually, developing a fragmented listening experience. The archival material mainly exists as a digital database, fragments of the unheard is an experiential form of the past, which reorganises audio from previous pieces in the Olive Plant, and re-contextualises them to be experienced through space.
Created by: Jordan Edge & Nour Sokhon
Granted The Right To Be Granted
A group of 6 Koumaria residents reconsider the work Instant Quartet, subjecting it to a complex transformation via data extraction from the original video, transforming this data into a symbolic language which was used as both a movement and musical score. This score was painted on the performers bodies, and then read by them in real time in collective performance.
Created by: Eric Lewis, Jordan Edge, Joshua Legallienne, Nour Sokhon, Małgorzata Suś & Tunni Kraus
Undulation
Undulation is a performative work that took place at the Πίστα (dance floor) of an old tavern in the Sellasia village during the 2019 residency. The work is the result of inter-disciplinary collaboration between four residents – combining a fixed four-channel audio installation, mobile sound system, movement, stage props, costume and a performative narrative.
Working with the theme of ‘the archive’, the work was developed as a site-specific response to the history of the location. The residents spoke with local historian, Ioannis Kapetanakis, whose knowledge helped shape the narrative of the piece; allowing them to reference the space’s former identities as place which held theatrical and dance events many years ago. The work also references Canon, an improvised performance that took place at the same location during the 2013 residency. Undulation was developed over the course of a single day and is the result of many exploratory improvisations in the space which led to the final presentation.
Upon exploring the space, the swings were the first thing that seemed significant to us, noticing the acoustic sounds created when the swings are in operation. The garden was overgrown so when one swings up and down, one’s feet move in and out of the long grass. Once the possibility of using this as a point of reference for listening became obvious, we began to explore the swings in new ways, using the body to explore different timbres and rhythms. Through variations in speed and the position of the upper and lower body a range of sonic opportunities are created. Lowering the legs increases the contact of the feet to the grass in turn, increasing the amplitude and range of frequencies created. Leaning the upper body back off the rear of the swing skews the angle of the seat, in turn altering the body’s contact with the grass. We were interested in using these sounds, both as live acoustic sound, and recording the sounds in situ to playback in the performance. We were also interested in the metaphors that the undulating motions of the swings could provide as some sort of references to temporality and the present moment.
The sound was recorded in two binaural configurations, which for the performance were played back simultaneously, in two discrete stereo fields. Four speaker drivers were suspended at ear-height around the circumference of the circular concrete area. The speakers were positioned in a cross-formation to create a quadraphonic speaker array. The two recordings of the rest swings were spatialised on two 180° planes (North to South and East to West), allowing two stereo fields to co-exist in the space. Acoustic effects could then be explored by performers and participants through movement in the space. In contrast to this, we choreographed movements on the swings to provide an acoustic counterpoint to the recorded swings that were recorded in-situ. We decided to use a fifth channel of audio, routed to a wireless speaker that would play back an excerpt from this work during our performance. The speaker was held by a performer, allowing the sound to be diffused through space with their actions. Remote control of the volume by the performer under their costume would allow for volume automation to be linked with their movements.
Created by: Jordan Edge, Joshua Legallienne, Nour Sokhon, Małgorzata Su
The State
Using reference material, Rodrigo collected sounds that reminded him of the Adan's effect in time and space. Sound artist Nour Sokhon built on these recordings, incorporating her own work into the material, to explore the many layers of sounds that occur outside mosques and churches during prayer.
The artists utilized sound to put the viewer in a perpetual state of renewal within the exhibition space and to highlight the muteness of Rodrigo's paintings.
Visuals by Rodrigo Echeverria
Sound by Nour Sokhon in collaboration with Rodrigo Echeverria
In Conversation with Entropy
A live improvised set between Ø •· –¬, Nour Sokhon and Regis Lemberthe in Noiseberg (Berlin, Germany). “In Conversation with Entropy” is a silent yet loud dialogue which was shared between three sound artists on stage through a language that they innately understand. The set summons its listeners to waltz into the chambers of their unconscious for a self reflective conversation.
The Reverse of a Child
The soundtrack of “The Reverse of a Child” is part of a project Nour Sokhon created for Radio Mansion (Beirut, Lebanon) in collaboration with Freya Edmondes. All the sounds in the track are from a sound bank recorded by people from the Mansion community documenting their auditory journey to Mansion and shared through a Whatsapp group. Nour and Freya were fascinated by how they did not know the identity of the people who did those recordings and by what they chose to share from their personal or daily life. This notion inspired the creation of the film for “The Reverse of a Child” a nightmare lullaby, when we were little our parents would read to us fairytales before we went to bed to remind us that everything that is to come will be magical and fairly simple. In reality those fairytales were never true, as the digital world has invaded our mental well being through subliminal messages. Similar to how the earlier versions of Little Red Riding Hood were dark and twisted versus the present altered ones where Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother come out alive. Several metaphors and symbols are used in this film, to comment on the obstacles which the capitalist system we are embedded in throws our way through digital channels.
Filmed by Nour Sokhon and Freya Edmondes Soundtrack by Nour Sokhon and Freya Edmondes Colour graded, edited & mastered by Nour Sokhon
Transformation Through Chaos II
“Transformation Through Chaos” is a live improvised set between between Stephanie Merchak and Nour Sokhon in collaboration with Nicole Farah.
“Transformation Through Chaos II” invites the audience to lose their inhibitions and self reflect on their personal experiences with disorder within the age of disinformation/ information overload. Sound and body are used as vehicles, encouraging the crowd to converse with their inner selves.
Sound: Stephanie Merchak and Nour Sokhon Body: Nicole Farah