Image: Sarah Walker

My Self in That Moment

Chamber Made

Based on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne, Chamber Made cultivates adventurous multi-artform practice to disrupt and rewrite conventions of live performance. A commitment to collaboration, an appetite for innovation, and an ongoing fascination in the intersecting spaces between artforms drives us into our fourth decade with renewed energy. Our approach is genre-agnostic, with each work reflecting the diverse practices of the collaborating artists in a form that emerges in relationship to the concept and themes being explored.

Led by Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick, the company offers a provocation for musicians, composers, sound artists, media artists, theatre directors and performance-makers who wish to explore beyond the borders of their artform and, through collaboration and experimentation, deepen and reimagine the possibilities of their practice. With a career spanning more than 20 years, Saulwick brings a deep knowledge of cross-artform collaborative practice to her role.

Chamber Made is dedicated to making an enduring contribution to the broader Australian performing arts landscape. The company creates a locale for engagement, research, collaboration, experimentation and innovation in cross-artform practice. Through artworks, mentorships, internships, practice exchange, residencies and advocacy, we create pathways, opportunities, and expanded networks for a diverse cohort of artists and arts workers.

Chamber Made has presented over 100 performance seasons in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, USA and South America and commissioned over 50 new Australian works, engaging countless artists since it was founded in 1988. Our works have been presented in theatres, recital halls, lounge rooms, galleries, on tablets and online. Recognised with myriad industry awards and nominations including recent Green Room Awards for ‘Diaspora’ and ‘Between 8&9’, Music Theatre NOW award (The Netherlands) for ‘Dybbuks’, Art Music Award for ‘Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep’, Chamber Made productions have received 9 Green Room Award Wins, 33 Green Room Award Nominations, a Helpmann Award Win and 6 Helpmann Award Nominations.

    ABOUT THE PROJECT

    My Self in That Moment – a live performance work for distributed body and voice.

    New sound performance work My Self in That Moment is a compelling exploration of the fragmented self in the digital age. At a moment in history where the distinction between our digital and IRL selves has never been so porous, the work considers the implications of the never-ending digital capture, replication and distribution of self. The bespoke technical system for the work sees 49 tablet devices networked to function as a visual and sonic ensemble, opening up myriad possibilities for the spatialisation of image and sound, and an ever-shifting relationship between the mediated and live body/voice of the solo performer.

    “A right-wing French media company took a soundbite of my voice and used it as the introduction to their news. So, there’re many forms of dispersal and many forms of nonconsensual dispersal. I don’t even know if consent is the right word. You’re just kind of … just out there. How much agency do I have of a past self that’s been funnelled through machines? How much of that is me?”
    Interview extract, performer Tina Stefanou

    Directed by Chamber Made Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick, the elements of live performance, spatialised sound, and screen-based visuals come together in this unique intersection of the human and the technological. The audience, at first immersed in a haunting sound world, witness the gradual reveal of a disquieting installation of screens on which the image of the performer is built, fractured and eventually dismantled. From here, they move to an intimate in-the-round performance where the relationship between live vocalist and tablets, between person and image, body and utterance unfolds in a series of complex and hypnotic sequences.

    The 49-channel sound score for My Self in That Moment, created by composer Peter Knight, is built entirely from the singing, sounding and speaking human voice of three featured vocalists Tina Stefanou (Australia), Jessica Aszodi (Germany) and Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (Taiwan). Scored, processed and distributed across the moving constellation of digital tablet speakers, their voices and stories become disembodied and dispersed, offering a poignant counterpoint to the physical and vocal presence of the live solo performer.

    My Self in That Moment is an affective meditation on the ever-multiplying archive of the self, a ritual of endless construction and deconstruction, a disturbing and effecting portrayal of the fragmentation of our enmeshed digital existence.

    Session Times
    PROFILE: Here’s What We Made
    Thursday 8 June

    CONTACT

    Kylie McRae
    kylie@chambermade.org