Talk

Open Forum: Tomoko Sauvage / Vibrant Matters

For almost two decades, Sauvage has developed her tactile, aural and visual knowledge of the properties of materials, especially of water, with her instrumentarium combining ceramics, stones, glass, water, hydrophones and electronics. The ever-moving liquid is the central material in her research. She has composed music but also realised sculptures and sound installations using different forms of water such as droplets that fall from melting ice and underwater air bubbles that make a sort of aerophones. Her interest centers around micro-macrocosmic analogy in relation to the sounds of vibrant objects that are made audible by means of amplifications.

Tomoko Sauvage is a Paris-based Japanese composer and artist who is best known for her long-time musical and performance practice on her original instrumentarium assembling water, ceramics and electronics. She animates the inanimate through tuning water and vessels, making them vibrate and magnifying their tiny sounds that are otherwise quasi-inaudible. Her work centers on tactile materiality of vibrant objects, metaphorical listening and the use of chance as a compositional method. For two decades, she has been performing internationally at institutions and festivals such as Barbican Centre (London), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Maerz Musik (Berlin), Musée d’art moderne (Paris), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Nyege Nyege Festival (Uganda) and Wonder Cabinet (Palestine). Her installation and video works have been shown at Sharjah Art Foundation, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.