Portfolio (2020) | henrymcpherson

"un port une femme my head ukwibukisha half cup sugar"

& Doggerland (2020)

1. Audio | 60'00''

2. Text

About

un port une femme my head ukwibukisha half cup sugar is collaboratively generated hour-long podcast featuring the Noisebringers, Sumani, and Cléa Chopard.

Text and sounds were generated independently - due to the Covid-induced distancing - then combined together to form a loose nonsensical narrative of discovery, place, and archaeology.

Doggerland, a short piece of text generated by Henry McPherson, is dispersed throughout the track.

The full text of Doggerland can be read here

Will I enjoy Covid-19 if I haven't watched the first eighteen? (2020)

Zoom Performance | 1'40'00''

About

The Noisebringers present the second in their Zoom explorations of absurdism in the time of Covid.

I dreamed I was a Cheesecake (2020)

About

I dreamt I was a cheesecake. This is why I changed position, I know you hate cheesecake - Sumani

Noisebringers, with Laurent Estoppey

Monument (2020)

About

Printing Ink, Acrylic, Pen, Pencil on Cartridge | Solo Violin | Variable Duration

Created for Italian violinist Silvia Tarozzi, Monument is a work for solo violinist.

I. the First Movement – Breathe

Permit yourself to breathe (just breathe).

II. the Second Movement – Observe

Observe (with the eyes, the ears, the body, the breath): the largeness of strokes, the wholeness of forms, vast gesture, giant shapes, architecture.

III. the Third Movement – Dig

Take your tool and begin to dig. Uncover the layers of history in a centimetre. Feel the traces of movement and thought. Widen your search. Open the cavity of time. Pause for breath.

IV. the Fourth Movement – Follow

Allow the eye to lead the arm, the hand, the fingers, the feet. Scan freely. Change direction. Fall over. Run around. Where do you find yourself?

V. the Fifth Movement – Speak

Dive into nonsense. Fragment your language. Conjure images and words. Babble and recite poetically. Can you speak when your eyes are closed? Mumble.

VI.the Sixth Movement – Collapse

Shatter the world you have built. Break the things you have made sacred. Close up. Hide your treasures. Let no-one see you.

VII.the Seventh Movement – Read (only once)

Read left to right (or right to left, or up to down, or down to up) in full, then close.

The text interspersed across the score can be read in its entirety here

Parchments (Functional Apparatus) (2020)

About

Ink on Layered Cartridge, backlit (LED) | Variable Ensemble (1-3 performers) | Variable Duration

Premiered at Bauhaus Dessau, DE. Ronan Whittern (Bassoon) Nathan Watts (Cello), Feburary 2020

Parchments (functional apparatus) is an assemblage of three painted scores (black Japanese ink on 300gsm cream cartridge, 29.7 x 42.0cm), layered in eight different configurations and backlit by LED. The work draws conceptually on histories of tattooing, of mark-making, vellum inscription and trace, and explores the idea of layers of memories and wisdom(s) held in the 'skin' - of bodies, of instruments, of buildings, of communities.

How do we hold the memories of the things that have touched us? What does it mean to touch and sound?

The work can be explored by 1 - 3 movers or instrumentalists in an improvisation capacity.

All eight paintings should be utilised in performance. Performance should be between 10 and 30 minutes long.

Scores can either be printed, and laid in any grid or linear configuration on the floor, or projected, one-by-one onto the wall or floor (if this is the case, care should be taken to ensure that colour distortion is not too evident).

Easter Raises the Dead (2020)

About

Audio | 9'30''

from Rocks I have Taken (Maria Sappho, 2020)

From Maria Sappho:

These videos are apart of the project 'Rocks I have Taken' and are of transplanted rocks collected from stolen lands, lands used for killing, and lands narrowly evading the invasion of humans.

Sound by Henry McPherson Rocks by Maria Sappho "Rocks I have Taken is a visual album of stories, sounds, and videos of rocks that I have collected from places I have been or places I am from. Each rock is paired with a story of a land which in one way or another has felt the invasion of human presence. These are stories both ancient and not so distant, which tell different paths of exchanging histories, conquered and stolen lands, lost cultures and languages, but growth and change nonetheless."

Album available to buy at Bandcamp