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Media Release: Christchurch City Council

Navigate the city by ear at Audacious, Christchurch’s first-ever festival of sonic arts, which will see the Central City humming from Saturday 1 March – Sunday 2 March.

Christchurch will resonate with a diverse and interactive programme of installations, workshops, interventions, performances and sound-walks, including:

• A folded path by Circumstance (UK)
  This unique moving artwork, created specifically for the streets of Christchurch, lets the audience become the orchestra as they walk in groups around the city while holding portable loudspeakers. Saturday 1 March, 3pm and 8.30pm, Sunday 2 March 11am and 3pm.
• Resonifying the city by Stanier Black-Five (Christchurch)
  Sounds lost to Central City since the February 2011 earthquakes – pedestrians, buskers, traffic and the bells of the ChristChurch Cathedral – will be restored. The work will be created using a mixture of public archival material and personal recordings. Cathedral Square and under the Colombo Street Ballantynes air bridge.
• Sound flowers by Chris Reddington and Tom Phillpotts (Christchurch)
  A sound sculpture that uses water to generate shifting tones from a series of suspended metal resonators. Corner High and Hereford Streets.
• Sunburners by Adam Willetts (Christchurch)
  Sun and shadows drive a chorus of solarbots on the banks of the Avon, creating an evolving sound work as changes in sunlight throughout the day change the speed of the motors and resulting patterns of sound. Between Hereford and Cashel Streets.
• Sonic rods by Alistair Galbraith (Dunedin)
  Sonic metal rods that can be played by passers-by. The Sonic Garden, 728 Colombo Street.
• Plus other works and performances by leading New Zealand sound artists Rachel Shearer (Auckland), Sean Kerr (Auckland), Samin Son (Wellington), Bruce Russell (Christchurch),  Simon Kong (Christchurch) and Dr Malcolm Riddoch (Christchurch).

Audacious also offers plenty of chances to get hands-on – and ears-on – at a series of workshops for all ages. Build and play traditional Taonga Puoro / Māori instruments with local experts Tony Smith (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tahu – Kāti Irakehu) and Geoff Low (Christchurch) and build your own synthesiser with Nicholas Woollaston (Christchurch). Specially for kids, Dr Claire Pannell (Australia) will explore how we hear and help build instruments to take home, while experimental guitarist Greg Malcolm (Christchurch) will lead sound-based story sessions.

For more details on this unique event, please visit www.audacious.org.nz

Audacious is supported by the Council’s Ever Evolving Events programme and the Transitional City Projects Fund in partnership with The Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists Inc, the group behind the recently-established sonic arts gallery The Auricle. Additional support has been received from Creative New Zealand and the British Council.