Sharon Gal is an artist who spans many skills, known for being a performer and composer primarily, The fact she works in so many different fields makes me excited to see her lecture. Her works using Voice, Electronics, Instruments, video collages, and field recordings, and using that to explore themes of relationships between people and sound and space make for a watch that you don’t get often
Etudes
Etudes is a pack of 78 cards that Sharon created, with one side of the card being text and the other being text. The way it works is that it is an open score, which means the cards can be interested in the artist, and then the artist will create work that they think suits that card. It is somewhat reminiscent of Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies cards’ where you pull a card and it tells you an instruction. Then you interpret the card how you want to then do whatever you think you should do. It is a fun but interesting way to get an artist to switch up their creative pattern and push them outside of their comfort zones.
To show an example of this Sharon created two pieces based on this technique, the piece I want to focus on is ‘ETUDE No 1‘. ETUDE No 1 is a vocal piece very reminiscent of Joan La Barbara’s work. Having screechy high vocals reaching octaves that are uncommon to the human ear. The piece is quite peaceful, these scattered vocal patterns with a splash of reverb make for a nice listen.
Overall I really liked Sharon’s work and how she pushes the boundaries of sound art by using card games that make the artist intentionally create something different, the fact she is in so many disciplines makes for an interesting read and I am very excited to see what she does in our lecture.
References
Sound and Music. (n.d.). Sharon Gal. [online] Available at: https://soundandmusic.org/discover/composer/sharon-gal/