For many years, sound artist and improviser Tomoko Sauvage has been working on a self-developed instrument through exploring different forms and states of water, their electro-acoustic features and emerging phenomena, such as feedback-creating, waving drones.
Sauvage's instrument can be described as a kind of a natural synthesiser: water-filled porcelain bowls amplified with hydrophones. As a result of experimenting with water droplets in order to generate vibrations in the water bowls, the instrument has turned into a sound installation in which the dripping of melting, crystal shaped ice blocks creates a web of chiming notes and reflecting light, resonating in the space.
The tonality of the random droplet percussion is defined by the quantity of water, augmenting drop by drop, decreasing with evaporation. This interplay establishes a fragile balance between control and hazard, order and disorder, repetition and ephemerality.
Collaboration with Borealis Festival.