People, Inspiration & Ideas
Shivnakaun is an Experimental Arts project consisting of :
Vinny Bhagat —Laptop/electronics/Percussion/objects
Maria Fava - Visual Projections ( optical objects )
Kym Gluyas – Saxophone/field recordings
Recent Collaborations:
Ashhar Farooqui : Voice and Fx
Laura Wills : Live Art/digital coloring
Maura Oregan : choreography
Brian Oregan - Live Art/sketches of paint
Julius Crawford - Venue Design
Collaborations in the past :
Chris Martin – Electric piano
Tyrell Blackburn : Laptop
Derek Pasco - Saxophone
Jay Dabgar - Tabla
Josh Benett : Sitar,guitar
Tom Buchanan : Live Art
W.T Masseli - Art display
Lea Czikowski : choreography
Luke Toop – visual projections and video camera
Our performance is like a journey, which can start with ambient minimal found sounds and climbs to various areas of abstract sonic art and electronica. The music is created through code, field recordings synthesized sound, rhythm’s , , acoustic instruments , video,found objects that often puts the listener into an interesting-spatial environment. The spontaneous nature of the music means you hear a one off performance.
History and Gigs: Meeting at The Elder Conservatorium Of Music, University Of Adelaide we started an improvised computer music project in April 2005 that began with our first live performance on South Australian Composers Symposium - Radio Adelaide.Thanks to presenter Alex Carpenter for his offering.Originally only putting the group together for this performance, we found our selves being offered a show for the opening of The Delicatessen Gallery @ 2005 and then a slot on the bi monthly COMA performance’s (Creative Original Music Adelaide) by the listeners for the Hipnote Autumn Sessions 2005. Since then the group has evolved into various streams of experimental music, computer music and visual Art and now is led by Vinny Bhagat - often inviting other artists from diverse backgrounds from Adelaide, interstate and overseas to perform in the concerts. Distributed performances is an highly interesting concept, breaking all the barriers of distance, performers in one physical place and traditional musical practises. Thanks to the performers who took part in the last performace, Maria Fava - live video - streamed live from Milano - Italy and Ashaar Farooqui - voice - streamed live from New Delhi - India. After 2 succesful public performances in Adelaide, we invite interested musicians and visual artists for any form of colloboration for performances.
Shivna Kaun Quartet << *noise*nature*hammers*landslides >>
“Whereas, in the past, the point of disagreement has been between dissonance and consonance, it will be in the immediate future, between noise and so called musical sounds”(John Cage 1966).
Noise is often thought of as the opposite of music, something that is undesirable and ugly. Music of different cultures have made a clear distinction between musical sounds and noise. To Helmholtz musical sound was “…. a perfectly undisturbed, uniform sound which remains unaltered as long as it exists” (Helmholtz 1954). The term ‘noise’ is itself a description of a timbre. In comparison, musical tones are ‘regular and uniform’ whereas noises are ‘confused and irregular’. Splashing of water, whistling of the wind, a boiling kettle or a passing truck are all examples of musical noises. “Noises are useful to new music as so called musical sounds for the simple reason that they are sounds”(Walker 1970).“However if the word “music” is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound” (John Cage 1966)“Music Concrete, one of the early forms of electronic music grew out of the fascination with the musical possibilities of environmental noise”. (Abraham 1960). Percussion music on the other hand is influenced from a similar idea where the point of reference is the underlying rhythm, to the extent that any sound is acceptable to the composer.Electronic music is only limited by the relationship that exists between the human ear, the mind and the acoustic sound. However “it is clear that the composer of electronic music should not attempt to imitate timbres of traditional instruments”(Stockhausen 1962), it becomes a necessity for the audience not to accept any familiar patterns and sounds their ears are use to.
Shivna Kaun looks to stretch the scope of deep listening and sonic meditations to a larger audience.