Norwegian experimental composer and interdisciplinary sound artist Tine Surel Lange’s «Works For Listening» is a series of electro-acoustic works-in-progress (so far she composed 13 works, 10 of them presented here), focusing on listening aesthetics and our psychological categorization of sound. These «Works For Listening» are meant to offer inspiration for increased, deep listening experiences in life. Surel Lange has worked with Norwegian contemporary music ensembles like asamisimasa, Alpaca Ensemble, BIT20 and Oslo14 and made sound for several dance performances. Her work is rooted in organic material.
Surel Lange uses our everyday life’s materials and resonating objects – spoon, metal surfaces, roof , water flow and wires, and creates surrounding sound environments. She processes the organic sonic materials – mostly field recordings done with contact microphone placed in spaces where the development is in the materials (pitch, filters, frequencies, dynamics) are emphasized with vertical movement to varying degrees, and later she reconstructs the tone, rhythm, timbre and layers. Eventually, these sonic sources are transformed into physical and tactile spatial electro-acoustic soundscapes, often abstracted from their original state.
All «Works For Listening» were made in full-sphere surround sound – 5th order ambisonics – but have been presented in many different formats, as in this stereo decoding of the works and before in installations and exhibitions in Scandinavia, United States and South Korea. This precise and layered process produces suggestive soundscapes that sharpen and transform our most routine daily oral experiences. Patiently, we become aware of the hidden timbral nuances of the objects and materials that surround us and how we interact and are affected by their sonic qualities. Our listening experience is challenged, becomes more informed, more immersed with and within these mundane sounds and their delicate dynamics, and eventually, more sensitive to the mysterious aural world around us. Hopefully, this listening process will make us more responsible for this world.
Eyal Hareuveni
Tine Surel Lange (el. + acc. sounds, comp)
