MUSIC // MÜZİK
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Nearby (2024) For Soprano, Tanbur and Fixed Medium.
The work invites performers to sonically go visiting, join-in, and travel-with the blackbirds, exploring various sonic relations in this constellation. The work aims to foreground idiosyncrasies of each performer, bringing “traces” of various traditions and conventions they worked-with into the work. Based on an interpretative, improvisatory and comprovisatory framework, the work holds the complex of (im)possibilities and (mis)understandings of sounding-with and nearby each other. The work is made of five miniature sections, and invites the audio paper form to cross over into the concert space, enabling a play with expectation and the psychogeography of the concert environment. The title derives its name from Trinh Minh-ha’s concept of "speaking nearby" as opposed to "speaking about" others, as introduced in her documentary film "Reassemblage" (1983). The work has been premiered at "Sonic Borderlines" Festival.
Junctures (2024) A miniature acousmatic exploration created with Buchla 200 and Halldorophone samples made during my EMS (Elektronmusikon Studion) residency in Stockholm. In this brief sonic meditation I begin playing with the abstract nature of imperfection through a felt sense of rawness in sound and its' behavior asking: What it could come to mean in this specific context? With focus on tuning, timbre, characters of sounds, the piece is a gentle tickle, a light & playful beginning—the voyage is evergoing.
Nine Stages of Not Arriving // iKKi Duo (2023) This album is a free improvisation project of iKKi Duo, Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu (cello and objects) & Fulya Uçanok (piano, objects, and electronics). The album comprises nine miniatures, making a playful allusion to the suite form.
Released in February, 2023 by Ada Music Label: Nine Stages of Not Arriving
Invisible Congruences (2022) This is an electroacoustic work for piano, live electroacoustics, and fixed media. The piece explores forms of sonic congruences between the piano and electronics through a variety of relational behaviors. Through these relational zones, congruences between agents take various sonic forms, investigated through parameters of pitch/tuning, noise, timbre, time, and space. Agents move through separations and congruences, as they relate-in-difference within a shared sonic habitat.
Wandering Rocks // iKKi Duo (2023) Inspired by the geological phenomenon with the same name, Wandering Rocks is a texture-based work that explores movement within stillness. The work is 30 minutes and is divided into six sections, with each section is approximately five minutes. The process was a co-authored back-and-forth response process, where each section was composed by one of the duo members (except for the 5th section, composed together). Through this process, the duo remains receptive to creating sonic fields inspired by one another's sonic approaches, and embrace unexpected elements.
Released in August, 2023 by Syrphe Label: Wandering Rocks
Swarming (2020) Swarming examines the interplay between various binarisms through a series of dialogues. It delves into a range of spectrums, undulating between fragmentation and completion, presence and absence, as well as the human and the machine.
Swarming is an acousmatic rendition of the earlier Childlike only in the depth of innocence for cello, percussion, mono fixed medium [pre-recorded voice (alto)], and stereo fixed medium; performed by, Gökçe Göknel (voice), Amy Salsgiver (percussion), Gökhan Bağcı (cello) together with tape.
Released in September, 2023 as a single by Sea Major Music: Swarming
S-wallow-ING (2022) In these two miniature explorations, I collaborated with two swallow birds. These explorations are a part of my artistic research.
As I went for a three day visit to Balıkesir, Edincik/Turkey at May 2021, I was woken up by a single swallow at around 4:00 AM chattering a solo. Soon after another joined in; they began a duet, reacting and responding to one another. I wanted to visit and join-in with their sonic relations. I got up & without scaring them off, was able to record their chatter. I made two response-explorations with this recording.
During my practice, I asked: How do I move past the learnt ape-brain vs.
bird-brain dichotomies? How may I render these swallows as well as myself capable in our sounding together? And starting with such questions, I began generating and leaning on speculations, and stories, exploring what could be known from our sonic relation together, through a specific group of contexts.
For more information about the process visit the "Research Catalogue" Exposition: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1511494/1511495/0/351
Performers: Two swallow birds: Voice, Fulya Uçanok: Piano, objects & electronics.
Quest(ion)s (2022) In these two miniature explorations, I collaborated with the vocalist Sumru Ağıryürüyen. I asked her to send me improvisations based on a list of motion trajectories (Temporal Semiotic Units) I sent her. She kindly accepted my invitation & sent me her improvisation where she inhales & exhales her acousmatic presence.
I worked with her improvisation through two response-explorations in pursuit of a possible "response-able com-position (RC) practice" as a part of my research. Along with her improvisation Sumru uttered words that are somewhat related to, and/or inspired by her improvisation: “Expressions of the mystic quest”. Her choice of words, and the way she utters them (revealing it word by word, piece by piece) expressing a playful and mysterious process, effected and colored my listening and responses. I named the piece after both her “quest”, and the set of piling questions in my head, calling it “Quest(ion)s”. This two-piece-encounter was where I first began exploring possibilities for an RC practice.
For more information about the process visit the "Research Catalogue" Exposition: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1511494/1511495/0/351
Performers: Sumru Ağıryürüyen: Voice, Fulya Uçanok: Piano & objects.
Together-Apart (2022) Here is a homage for Pauline Oliveros.
This score is a part of the project "A Year of Deep Listening" which is a 365-day celebration of the legacy of Pauline Oliveros, and what would have been her 90th birthday. Aside from celebrating Oliveros' birthday, the project aims to explore what listening can make possible in the context of our current moment.
See the score here. Explore more of these scores @ The Center for Deep Listening.
Temporary Residing (2017, rev. 2021) This is a piece that explores a myriad of moments, and movements that bridge them. These movements are sometimes enacted through sudden ruptures and at others, subtle leakages and transitions. The piece invites listeners to move through various residences, temporarily inhabiting each space, while exploring diverse sound behaviors and listening situations. It is messy, it is plural, it is always situated.
Released on the album: UNDÆ! Álbum II
Circumstantial Multitudes (2019) This piece was written for Klank.ist ensemble. We listen and play through various “circumstances” based on various forms of textural and gestural thinking. Each “circumstance” is interpreted differently by each one of us, creating entangled multiplicities. Adapting and adopting to each other’s interpretations, individualities both emerge as well as enmesh with one another, forming “circumstantial multitudes”.
Performed by: Klank.ist ensemble
Released on album: V. Dialogs
Balloons For Thought (2018) In this piece I play with balloons; I investigate various tactile and movement-based relations between object-body and human-body, and explore various possibilities for sound, movement and narrative. I explore these narratives through some gestural and textural thinking as well as some program and abstract elements.
Towards (2018) Sound-movement continuations and discontinuations are explored with samples taken from various string instruments coupled with generated electronics. This piece is an inquiry into the notion of “towardness”. Could there be a towardness in arrivals?
Free Improvisation (2018) This is a live concert recording from the A.I.D. Event @ St. Benoit/Istanbul
Deniz Güngören: Voice, Fulya Uçanok: Electronics & Piano
Crackle Away (2016) This piece is composed by three micro samples, a crackle sound, a sine tone sample, and a cardboard box hit. The whole piece is constructed by processing these three samples in different ways. It was inspired by a very loud cicada outside my window, as I found my mind traveling into imagining each crackle sound that the tummy of the cicada, its everyday life and its possible sentients.
Çiruk (2016) A little voyage into the IDM genre.