LookingOutwards-10

Andrew id: heyingw

The Reverse Sessions,Tarek Atoui (2014)

The artist built 10 unconventional instruments including horns and tea-cups and used them to give a performance. Atoui invited a group of instrument makers and composers to improvise with them. The performance was very energetic and inspiring.

I really like how the artist reversed the order in which instruments are usually made. He collected sounds of a series of ethnic musical instruments and collaborated with the instrument makers and composers to recreate the objects that they believed to be producing these sounds. I think this is an imaginative and unconventional approach to the creation of sound and music: With the audio already established, it was the artist’s job to figure out the source of the sound. It provided the artist with great possibilities and freedom to make something experimental.

The outcomes were completely out of the audience’s expectations. The piece followed genesis of sound making and employed some mechanism create Atoui’s makeshift instruments. The piece demonstrated another attempt of the artist to explore how people perceive and sense sounds.