Andrea Parkins: "Sonic Spaces for the Stray”: (Dif)Fusing Dis-location in Sound Installation and Performance

 

© Andrea Parkins / Norwegian Academy of Music

Andrea Parkins: Artistic Results of the Project

 

Exhibitions, 2019-2021

  • Andrea Parkins “Diffusing Dislocation: Sonic Spaces for the Stray”, ROM for kunst og arkitektur, 2021. (Fixed-media installation: 14-channel audio work, 45 amplified drawings, six single-channel videos.) With performance, “Sonic Spaces for the Stray,” 3 December 2021. Presentation, final results of the project. 2-12 December 2021.

 

  • “Sounds Over Time,” Moscow Sound Art Gallery, RU and New York Electronic Art Festival, Governor’s Island, NYC, 2019.

 

Completed Audio Works, 2019-2021

  • The Stray (14-channel fixed-media. Premiered ROM for kunst og arkitektur. Andrea Parkins exhibition: Diffusing Dislocation, Sonic Spaces for the Stray). Final Project Presentation 2-12 December 2021.

 

 

  • Two Captiva Pianos, 2021. 

 

 

  • Studio Drawing, 27-4-19 for 25 Loudspeakers. Premiered Ǿstre, Bergen, 2019.

 

  • Traces: for Electric Organs, I-Phone Videos, Amplified Objects & Electronics. "Very Organized" performed, KM28, Berlin, 2019.

 

 

Completed Performance Films (solo and collaboration), 2019-2021

  • decentered/on center, 2021

 

  • objects-as-instruments, 2021

 

  • room divining, 2021

 

  • research with two pianos, objects, drawing, paper & electronics, by Andrea Parkins & Magda Mayas, 2021

 

  • Nine Floor Etudes, 2019 

 

Recordings Released, 2019-2021: Electroacoustic composition and electroacoustic performance collaboration:

  • Two Rooms from the Memory Palace, Andrea Parkins, CD. (Infrequent Seams 2021)

 

  • The Third Room, Andrea Parkins, Web project. (Infrequent Seams 2021)

 

  • Oval Traumen, Andrea Parkins and Ignaz Schick, CD. (Zarek 2020)

 

  • Elective Affinities, Andrea Parkins and Matthew Ostrowski, CD. (Infrequent Seams 2019)

 

 

Andrea Parkins: Activities/Events During the Project Period

Performances - solo and collaborative: 2019-2021

2021

  • “Spaces for the Stray”, solo performance at ROM for kunst og arkitektur, in Andrea Parkins exhibition: “Diffusing Dislocation: Sonic Spaces for the Stray” (presentation: final results of the project).

 

  • Sampled Ground festival, Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD (jmprovisation, trio with Zsolt Sőrés and Liz Allbee). 

 

  • Irtijal Berlin Festival 20/21 (improvisation, quartet with Ute Wassermann, Abed Kobeissy, and Ali Hout).

 

  • Berlin Solo Impro Festival.

 

  • 17th MÓZG Festival, Bydgoszcz, Poland (improvisation, Andrea Parkins/ Biliana Voutchkova duo).

 

  • Kazu's Honeycomb Festival (improvisation, duo with Kazu Uchihashi).

 

2020

  • Studio Drawing, 27-4-29. Ambisonic fixed media presentation. FRST Mini-Electroacoustic Festival/PULS Concert #8, Visby, Sweden.

 

  • Lineage. Oslo National Theatre Festival, Riksscenen (live score for dance for work by Otto Ramstad).

 

  • Jazzwoche Berlin (improvisation, Andrea Parkins/ Yorgos Dimitradis duo).

 

  • Jazzfest Berlin (improvisation, guest artist with KIM Collective).

 

  • KLAENG Festival, Solo Edition, Cologne.

 

  • Beirut in Berlin festival (improvisation: duo with JD Zazie; and sextet by Sharif Sehnoui, with Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Beins, Tony Buck, Michael Thieke, and Axel Dörner).

 

2019

  • Solo, Lydgalleriet, Bergen.

 

  • Lineage. (live score for movement artist Otto Ramstad), Artistic Research Week 2019, Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

 

  • Music Unlimited festival,  Wels, Austria. (improvisation, Andrea Parkins/ Ute Wassermann duo).

 

  • Solo, Festival Paysages d’Ecoute, Le Mans.

 

  • Silent Green/Kontraklang, Berlin (score by Miya Masaoka, performance with Masaoka and Kaffe Matthews).

 

  • Solo: decentered/on centre. 28th Annual Festival, Experimental Intermedia, NYC (curated by Phill Niblock).

 

Presentations, 2019-2021

  • Autumn Forum, Norwegian Artistic Research Program (NARP). (19 October 2021)

 

  • Music Improvisation Workshops with Ute Wassermann. HKB Musik Bern. (3-4 June 2021)

 

  • Lecture and Guest Teaching, Catalyst Institute. Berlin. (19 May 2021)

 

  • Lecture. Composition Research Group, led by Daniel Peter Biro. Grieg Academy of Music, University  of Bergen. (3 May 2021)

 

  • Lecture and Guest Teaching. Hochschule Musik, University of Applied Sciences, Luzern. (19-20 April 2021)

 

  • Autumn Forum, Norwegian Artistic Research Program (NARP). (13 October 2020)

 

  • Symposium Panelist, “Improvisation as an Alternative Academy” Music Pours Over the Sense (online), Doctoral School for Artistic Research, University of Music and Performance Arts, Graz. (15 May 2020)

 

  • Autumn Forum, Norwegian Artistic Research Program (NARP). (23 September 2019) 

  

Selected Writings, Interviews and Reviews, 2018-2021

  • Parkins, Andrea. “Notes on Practice”, Blue Rinse Papers, Spring 2021, Lydgalleriet, Bergen.

 

 

  • “Elective Affinities: Andrea Parkins & Matthew Ostrowski.” The Wire, 431 (January 2020). Review.

 

 

  • Mayas, Magda, Orchestrating Timbre: Unfolding Processes of Timbre and Memory in Improvisational Piano Performance, Academy of Music and Drama, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg. Contributed text, p.99-100. 

 

Andrea Parkins Biography:

 

Andrea Parkins is a sound artist, composer, and electroacoustic improviser who investigates relationships between the body, material, sound, space and situation. Her sonic materials include acoustic and software instruments, electronic feedback, amplified objects and amplified drawing tools. As a performer, she is known for her pioneering work with her electronically processed accordion and investigation of embodiment and chance with her custom-designed software instruments. Described as a “'soundist' of protean talent" by American critic Steve Smith, Parkins’ use of electronics, amplified objects, and Fender-amped accordion creates sonic fields of lush harmonics and sculpted feedback, punctuated by moments of gap and rift. 

 

Parkins’ works encompass multi-channel sound installations; electronic music pieces; electroacoustic performances and compositions; and sound for contemporary dance, experimental film and intermedia performance. Her projects have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Kitchen, Experimental Intermedia, Kunsthalle Basel, Kunsthall Bergen, All Ears and Blow Out! festivals, Oslo; Borderline Festival, Athens; Music Unlimited, Wels; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg; NEXT, Bratislava; and Cyberfest, St. Petersburg, among many others. She performs as a solo artist, and has collaborated with artists such as The Necks, George E. Lewis, Magda Mayas, Nels Cline, Ute Wassermann, Miya Masaoko, Stephen Vitiello, choreographer Vera Mantero, interdisciplinary performance artists The Body Cartography Project, filmmaker Abigail Child, and many more. 

  

Parkins’ notable works include her amplified drawing series, implemented in 2017 when she was an invited resident artist at the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida, and her site-configured multi-channel performance/installation, Two Rooms, Variation 1, for 40 loudspeakers and Solo Performer, premiered in 2016 at Usine C in Montreal, at the Akousma Festival for Immersive Digital Music. Other projects include Two Rooms from the Memory Palace, a generative multi-room fixed-media work, premiered at the 2015 New York Electronic Art Festival; and her 8-channel composition, Faulty (Broken Orbit), featured in the sound exhibition, “With Hidden Noise” (2012-2015), which toured in the US and Australia. The Fragmental Museum in New York City presented her performance/installation Austell 1 (2012), which funneled live sound from the Long Island City rail yards into a reverberant warehouse space, with interventions from a walking bell ringer and Parkins’ own processed accordion feedback. Parkins portable audio work, Object or Ob-jest? was presented at Cyberfest 2011 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in the previous year she was invited by artist Christian Marclay to perform interpretations of his graphic scores at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s retrospective festival of his work. Parkins toured from 2009 to 2012 with contemporary dance theatre artist Vera Mantero’s production, We Are Going to Miss Everything We Don’t Need, featuring Parkins’ score for amplified performers, objects and surfaces. From 2010-13, Parkins performed her 12-channel score for Symptom, an intermedia performance work by The Body Cartography Project.

 

Parkins’ recordings are published by Important Records, Confront Recordings, Atavistic, Henceforth Records, Infrequent Seams, and Creative Sources; she can also be heard as a contributor on labels such as hatart, Cryptogramophone and Clean Feed. Her writing is published by Errant Sound. She has been an invited resident artist at the Rauschenberg Residency (US), Elektronmusikstudion-EMS Stockholm, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center (US), Performing Arts Forum (FR), CESTA (CZ), and by Frei und Hanseastadt Hamburg Kulturbehoerde. Her work has been supported by the American Composers Forum, Berlin Musikfonds, French-American Cultural Exchange, Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, and Wave Farm Media Arts Assistance Fund. Parkins holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers University where she studied with Martha Rosler.