Fort-Tune

Performance and sound art jam, happening at the VIII Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania. October 15th, 2016.

As part of the Kaunas Fortress Association festival, and curated by Evelina Simkute, from Šilainiai Project, this was a performance that took place inside an abandoned Fort (sort of bunker) in Kaunas, at a location with attractive acoustics, enabling sound experimentation.

This sound and light art performance/exhibition experiments with the very special acoustic environment of the 40m-long hall inside the VIII fort.

It starts by exploring or tuning to the natural frequencies of the vault at the Fort. These produce resonances that are transformed into colour lights transposed according to their position in the visible spectrum, which repurpose the place from a war context into an experimental art, creative space.

Along the colouring of the sound and light, public and performers are invited to play and contribute with the acoustic of the chamber, so it can be sampled by the artist, processed and played back to further investigate the acoustic possibilities of the space.

During the performance, musicians joined to create a unique jam experience that included Baltic folk Sutartinės songs by  Aiste Aleckūnaitė and Ruta Kazanavičė, brass player Giedrius Balbieris, and guitar player Mantas Radzvilavičius. The result was an unexpected ephemeral sound that was processed, turned into light and interacted with the acoustic environment, the artists at the Fort.

The VIII Fort was built around 1890, by the Russian Empire to protect its west most borders. It was deemed useless by its position between higher heels and used only as barracks and storage.

Audios and video from the day:

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[vimeo 188097760 w=640 h=360]

Fort-Tune from roberto becerra on Vimeo.

Photos: Liucija Dervinyte

The festival also held an exhibition illustrations depicting the Fort, a light and textiles installation by LiucijaTextiles, and another lights installation by Šilainiai Project.