ishi ~ listening stone

“ishi” is a new work for stone, crystal radio, contact microphone and laptop. The work is based on Sawako’s ongoing interest in soundscape and the invisible signals of the urban environment.

In Japanese, “ishi” means “stone” as well as “will” and “intention.” With her piece, Sawako tries to listen to the will of stone through both radio transmissions and other invisible vibrations. The captured signal will then be mutated to create an intimate, poetic sound that forms a tiny moment of quiet in the city.

This work is commissioned by Roulette with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation.

Sawako is a sound sculptor and timeline-based artist who understands the value of dynamics and the power of silence. Once through the processor named Sawako, fragments in everyday life float in space vividly with a digital yet organic texture. Her unique world has been called “post romantic sound” by Boston’s Weekly Dig.

Sawako released her albums from 12k (USA), and/OAR(USA) and Anticipate (USA). She had collaborated with Taylor Deupree, asuna, HYPO, RF, Toshimaru Nakamura, Taku Sugimoto, Andrew Deutsch, Jacob Kirkegaard, Kenneth Kirschner, Radiosonde, among others.

She has performed internationally as an audio and/or visual artist in MUTEK (Canada): Tonic, Diapason, Monkey Town, Issue Project Room, Starbucks Salon, BAP Festival (NYC); Corcoran Gallery (Washington DC); Glade Festival, Resonance FM (UK); Batofar (Paris); Offsite, Super Delux, Bullets, Apple Store (Japan). In 2006, she was awarded a Jerome Foundation grant to create a commissioned work for Roulette.

Her work has been featured in The Wire (UK), Blow Up (Italy), Improvised Music from Japan (Japan), NY Art (US), e/i magazine (US), DEBUG (Germany), Go MAG (Spain), GAFFA (Denmark) among others.