You Me Swim Blackbird

(Stereo - best listened to on headphones). 'You Me Swim Blackbird' creates an awareness of one's own lived time through sound. It presents the sounds of internal memories of growth and external markers of life: the pulsating rhythms of a mother and her unborn baby’s heartbeats, the bubbling bursting sounds of breathing while swimming, and the periodic bursts of a blackbird’s springtime call. The sound of a body inside a body, a body crossing from water to air, and a body calling through air. The Rijksmuseum’s carillon signals the calculated motions of Amsterdam, wafting over the urgent rhythms of life. The sounds were recorded using everyday consumer technology: a handheld ultrasound device for listening to your foetus’s heartbeat, a handheld waterproof camera, and a laptop computer’s built-in microphone. Each captures a sonic quality that makes the intensity of the sounds more palpable, more internal or more open. Yolande Harris’ 'You Me Swim Blackbird' was commissioned by and created especially for the ICA for the Soundworks exhibition in response to Bruce Nauman’s 'Days'. ------------------------------------- Yolande Harris (UK 1975, Amsterdam NL) explores how people (and other animals) relate to their environment through sound. Major artistic research projects include Scorescapes (2009-2011) and Sun Run Sun: On Sonic Navigations (2008-2009). Her installations, performances and lectures have been presented widely, including: MACBA Barcelona, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Hayward Gallery Touring UK, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Issue Project Room NYC, Shedhalle Zurich, House of World Cultures Berlin, STEIM (Amsterdam) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). Yolande holds a Ph.D (Leiden University, 2011); was Sound Art Fellow (Academy of Media Arts Cologne 2006); Artistic Researcher (Jan van Eyck Academie 2003-5); has an M.Phil. (University of Cambridge, 2000); and a B.A. in Music (Dartington College of Arts,1997). http://www.yolandeharris.net Nominated by Journal of Sonic Studies sonicstudies.org This work is part of ICA SOUNDWORKS - www.ica.org.uk/soundworks

You Me Swim Blackbird creates an awareness of one’s own lived time through sound. It presents the sounds of internal memories of growth and external markers of life: the pulsating rhythms of a mother and her unborn baby’s heartbeats, the bubbling bursting sounds of breathing while swimming, and the periodic bursts of a blackbird’s springtime call. The sound of a body inside a body, a body crossing from water to air, and a body calling through air. The sounds were recorded using everyday consumer technology: a handheld ultrasound device for listening to your foetus’s heartbeat, a handheld waterproof camera, and a laptop computer’s built-in microphone. Each captures a sonic quality that makes the intensity of the sounds more palpable, more internal or more open. Yolande Harris’ You Me Swim Blackbirdwas commissioned by and created especially for the ICA for the Soundworks exhibition in response to Bruce Nauman’s Days.

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