trailer - je mets mon scaphandre - for bassoon, ambisonics, and sound-reactive light - trailer

Composition and live electronics: John Aulich
Sound-reactive light design: José del Avellanal
Bassoon: Olivia Palmer-Baker

Filmed by Alex Roberts on the 14th October 2025 at St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh as part of the concert 'Leaky Bodies and Touchy Software'
Trailer edited by Olivia Palmer-Baker

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je mets mon scaphandre (I put on my diving suit) is a new 40-minute immersive work for hyper-amplified bassoon, ambisonics and sound-reactive lighting. The piece's vibrant and ever-changing soundscape draws on feminist theory of the “leaky body”, which invites us to view the human body as fluid and amorphous. Here, the inherent spatiality and leaky, unstable nature of the bassoon are brought into dialogue with this theory and transmuted into sound and light.

As with the leaky body, the physical boundaries of the bassoon dissolve: the sound is recorded internally, on the surface of the instrument and externally with three specially configured microphones, whose signals constantly mix with each other. The piece explores the crossing of boundaries and plays with the way sound and air escape from the instrument; the resulting effects of these overlapping signals are shown visually through sound-reactive light.

The electronics amplify the smallest details in volume and dimension, with the sound spread throughout the entire space; at the same time, a ‘light organism’ emerges directly from the sound material. The three elements – performance, sound and light – constantly influence each other, and are influenced physically by the space, the acoustics and the placement of the audience. Also, at certain points in the work, the performer decides how the piece will continue through improvising to and reacting to the visual and acoustic information, following different pathways depending on the system's output. The result is a work and an experience that is unique to each situation, each space and each circumstance. The flexible structure and ambient nature of the work gives the audience space to reflect on the relationship between their own bodies, the space and the people around them.

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The first version of work, for bassoon and ambisonics, was premiered in Berlin on the 14th March 2025.

The development and production of this work was sponsored by:
Internationaler Koproduktionsfonds, Goethe-Institut
Hinrichsen Foundation

A thank you to our supporters, without whom this project would not have been possible:
KLANGZEITORT Berlin
Kollektiv UNRUHE
Musikakademie Rheinsberg
The University of Edinburgh

Видео trailer - je mets mon scaphandre - for bassoon, ambisonics, and sound-reactive light - trailer канала Olivia Palmer-Baker