Notes to ()
It is 2019 in Brussels, the world is shifting; the city is shifting. The artist is balanced, precarious as ever, on the blade that divides past from future. In this gesture, we chose what we want to remove from this time, what we want to embed within the city’s foundations, to disappear completely, to deliver to the future, or to infuse the earth with. We send notes to the frantic casting and recasting of the street; notes to the dry gulch of the Senne; notes to the mayoral megaprojects; notes to the vacant buildings and their squatters, artists, spiders, rodents and birds; notes to the stone slabs stretched over arteries of wire and pipe; notes to the sand and silt; notes to Shinkolobwe; notes to Bruxella 1238; notes to the burial rite, to decay, and to the agents of decay; notes to the defunct stock exchange and its rebirth as a beer experience; notes to the zecchino d’oro piantata and its crann an óir; notes to seeds on fallow land; notes to the century egg; notes to the archaeologists of the future; notes to the wizard behind the curtain; notes to trench warfare and to the badger’s warren; notes to progress and to entropy; notes to womb, room and tomb; notes to protention, retention and pretention; notes to Europe, Europa and Gia; notes to fossils and fossil fuels; notes to healing crystals, iron ore and salt; notes to roots, to rot and rhizomes; notes, in short, to Underground.

What I would like to do during my residency is to produce sound documentation for each of the 3 stones, the recordings of which will be afterwards carved onto a vinyl using a diy process (also reflecting the carving on the tablets). I will create a script for each stone and the plan is to invite artists working with either voice or instruments to interpret them. I have thought of inviting two people per stone, to create a more dynamic sound for each piece. So far Myriam van Imschoot and Markus Bergner, as well as Tom Jackson who plays clarinet together with another musician, possibly JJ Duerinckx (all of whom I have previously worked with in my recording studio Jambes) have agreed to participate. I am still looking for 2 more performers, so I was wondering if you have any ideas for who I could approach. The scripts are a mix of verbal and non verbal language, different attitudes such as sighing or contempt, and phonetic sounds – vowels, consonants, diphtongs. They don’t require any musical formation to be performed but I am thinking of ways in which to create a varied range of sounds. It could even be a clasically trained singer, a voice teacher, or even another instrument. I still have enough time so I can probably manage to find someone but I just wanted to hear your input and whether you think there is someone who would enjoy working on this with me.