Songs for the Ghost Quarters with Katt Hernandez
[Participate via Zoom link above]
Katt Hernandez, originally from USA, now finishing Artistic Research PhD (Konstnarlig Doktorand) in the Swedish Artistic Research System, will do a talk on her project “Sånger för Spökkvarteren (Songs for the Ghost Quarters)” undertaken at Lund University.
"Only the ephemeral is of lasting value" – Ionesco
»The mirrors of the cities we live in that we create in our imaginations, over the course of our daily lives, are ephemeral. But they are deeply abiding places, rich with memory, stories, histories and alternative futures. When the city-scapes, neighborhoods and rooms we inhabit change and disappear, by virtue of massive physical, social and economic forces, these ephemeral places are always and forever our own, in community and solitude alike.
This project is focused on Stockholm, because that is where I live, but its ideas are addressed to cities everywhere. The materials of the project are drawn around themes of urban memory, space transformation, psychogeography and the ghosts of the imagined city. The music and sound works that comprise the major share of the project, from smaller to larger scale in size and scope, draw from an instrument group of multi-channel arrays, field recordings, pipe organs, modular synthesizers, hurdy-gurdies, consumer grade speakers and electronics, nyckelharpa and, violin; these both mirror my own background, and act as a metaphor to the particular architectures and city-scapes of Stockholm.
There are two sets of questions this project seeks to reflect on. One is about the ability of individuals to affect their own experience of place in terms of collective memory and imagination, and the other is about how the combination of unusual timbrel materials and real-world sounds can trigger or inform that ability.«
Katt Hernandez website