SEMI SILENT

The revitalization of an ancient Transylvanian Saxon custom

The poetry of V. Leac seems suspended somewhere in between humor, absurdity, and a light and tender perplexity in the face of those minuscule exceptional instances in one’s life. Every next step is a trustworthy transgression toward an uncertain, promising and yet deluded future. In the shape of a musical/sonic performance, we take upon ourselves to read his poetry, with warm loudness and other me...

This sonic poem – in the absence of words – could be a participatory review for the abundance of dating apps rooted relationships with short expiration date. It contains reactions to matches on such apps, reflections to the essay The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han, memory exhumations and sharp intimacy technicalities. The voice-voices disclose fragility as virtue and pain as spectacle as much as...

Omnia Hall is the neuralgic point of the future projections for the National Center of Dance in Bucharest. It is the hall the dance center has dreamed about since its foundation in 2004. Omnia Hall is promised to be ready for use in 2020. The National Center of Dance was hosted for 7 years in the National Theater and in 2011 was invited to empty the premises, starting an exhausting uncertainty unt...

The material you are about to hear is an immersive acoustic experience containing footage from and around HOIA BACIU forest.

We track. We follow movement, note the progress or existence of something, we signal through sonar and bio sonar, radio and Morse, radar and scanners, heart monitors and surveillance. In so doing, we listen but also compose an acoustic space of our trailing, create sonic debris of our pursuit, a spontaneous audible record. To consider this soundtrack, I turned to the 8-Track, an obsolete technolog...

During a thunderstorm that never happened, 5 people meet by fireside to discuss how power structures play a part in how we interpret and hear different voices. Together they converse and examine how we listen to each other's voices, how we experience our own voices and how we think our voices might relate to our personalities and identities. In reality, the 5 of them actually met individually with...

I visited gate 3 of the Constanța shipyard on a Friday afternoon, taking on as „stalker” the local poet Yigru Zeltil, hence the abundance of steps on the recording. I did not catch a lot of interesting sounds with my DR-05 Tascam equipped with wind protection, except for a freight train that most likely carried cocaine, several types of trucks loading and unloading, plus a special crane sorting an...

Cars pass at high speed through a village and overlap with lives lived alongside the roads of Romania. Like waves, the noise of engines invades the sound space and transports us from one house to another. At each passage, a previously imperceptible sound is revealed. This sound experience prompts a listening proposition: One sound can hide another; but could a sound contain, in itself, another sou...

Early morning walk with Maria in Benești village, Vâlcea county. An exercise in finding the right morning ambience. A reflection on the recording process. The dogs are our friends. Sound piece created during the SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES organized by Asociația Jumătatea plină and SEMI SILENT to Conacul Otetelișanu, Vâlcea County, Romania in July 2018. Photo: Mara Mărăcinescu, 2018 Mara Mărăcinescu...

The stories that were told, the stories that were made, the ghosts that we heard and those that we imagined.

Hundreds of poultry, ducks of all ages, from hatchlings right out of their egg to noisy males, several varieties of geese, some very large with red cheeks like a cock’s comb, turkeys, chickens and hens, delicate decorative cocks like knick-knacks, peacocks in full bloom, some varieties of pigeons with hideous heads and a discussion about ostriches. A binaural immersion that smells of bird dropping...

In the small village of Benești, a few hours' drive West of Bucharest, locals use horse-drawn carts to go to the fields. They return with freshly cut hay or sand from the riverbed. Coachmen talk to their horses in order to indicate which directions to follow and the appropriate speed. “Dii” to move forward, “Hai” to go faster, “O” to stop. I've invited myself with the microphones on board for a ri...

Sound piece created by tweaking recordings containing the Romanian countryside’ sounds around the Conacul Otetelișanu, a skylark, some other birds, a pheasant, dogs, geese, sounds of my steps, the wind in the trees by the lake, the bell next to the church and me whistling a song written by Istvan Sky. There’s a glitch in/for every idyll. Sound piece created during the SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES orga...

Drip drop it starts. Drip drep continues...

7am. Driving Mara to the bus stop in Bălcești. She starts a binaural recording. I continue and develop the exercise. The piece follows our movements and reactions to the surroundings, the story of a dream I had, the immediate encounters. Sound piece created during the SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES organized by Asociația Jumătatea plină and SEMI SILENT to Conacul Otetelișanu, Vâlcea Department, Romania...

An art acustica experiment with two characters dialoguing on themes like revolution, consumerism, making the world a better place, progressive politics, subversive strategies, the future of mankind.

The piano is an anti-nomadic instrument. It is often sitting in the same room for decades surviving several generations of a family, silently (or not) witnessing their histories. In interaction with the room-climate the piano is slowly changing over the decades. It is a kind of time-travel-instrument shaped by time and space. Sound artists Eva Poepplein and Janko Hanushevsky (aka Merzouga) played...

Maria Balabaş propune un show conceput ca o emisiune de radio live, cu publicul alături. Tema aleasă este muzica pentru ansambluri vocale compusă şi interpretată în România. Este un teritoriu destul de ascuns, accesul fiind oprit de lipsa înregistrărilor şi a informaţiilor prea numeroase vizavi de activitatea compozitorilor, dar şi de o anumită percepţie nefavorabilă care include prezumţia de fest...

În data de 25 ianuarie 2018 a încetat din viață istoricul și filosoful Neagu Djuvara. Avea 101 ani. Fotograful Cornel Brad, într-o ședință foto din toamna anului trecut, l-a făcut să cânte. * Cornel Brad este fotograf. www.cornelbrad.com

Ulysses chose to „listen” to the sirens, therefore creating the possibility of being simultaneously active and attentive. A monstrous, overwhelming nature promised him the voices of all women past and those to come, the voices of mothers and daughters, voices of killers, women enemies hiding in the darkness of the unknown. The song of the sirens over the sea was meant to accompany Ulysses towards...

Între înregistrările audio făcute pe parcursul timpului, aceasta are o semnificaţie anume. Poartă cu sine ultimul drum al unui om pe care l-am respectat. Când am început să înregistrez, a fost mai mult sub un impuls emoţional. Acum, înregistrarea aceasta o să-mi amintească mereu de tristeţea pe care am simţit-o conducând cortegiul regal.

Doina Patega, 96, lives in a small village west of Targu-Jiu. This mix, or "salad of words" as I like to call it, translates my perception as a stranger of a woman who moved me deeply. I found in her voice a beautiful expression of her energy: sometimes singing, sad, laughing, with a vocal timbre marked by time, but which allows at times the perception of the astonishing youth that resides in this...

  Doamna Sina are 63 de ani, n-a locuit niciodată la oraș, a învățat 8 clase, în schimb a avut câteva case, vaci nenumărate, un magazin, un tractor și trei copii – dintre care unul de care a trebuit să aibă grijă în mod special.     Maria Balabaș este jurnalistă și muziciană. Moderează emisiunea Dimineața crossover de la Radio România Cultural și a creat proiecte dedicate noilor forme de creație r...

We chatted with Svetlana Cârstean in a café and we fought with the voices around us. Because she has a voice as delicate as her stature, but much stronger in writing. As she was told at the launch of the first volume of poems, Floarea de Menghină [The Vice Flower], Cartea Românească Publishing, 2008. From journalism, journal writing, poetry, to the hosting of the Wednesday Intersections talks, Sve...