ANIMAL [for body and sound]
ANIMAL_CTMFESTIVAL_2.jpg | Credits: CTM Festival
ANIMAL_CTMFESTIVAL.jpg | Credits: CTM Festival
ANIMAL_MINUFESTIVAL_2.JPG | Credits: MINU Festival
ANIMAL_MINUFESTIVAL.JPG | Credits: MINU Festival
ANIMAL [for body and sound] is a solo performance project on a custom sound and light rig. The setup features two 12" speaker cones lying face up in an 8-foot square of tube lights. I stand inside that shifting frame of light, holding a 2-by-4 foot sheet of double-paned polycarbonate plastic in my hands, which I use to warp a fixed media composition coming out of the cones in real time. The process is intensely physical, both in terms of what it asks of my body (I am drenched in sweat by the end of a performance), and in terms of the pool ball physics of the causal chain. Think this path with me: the cones shoot soundwaves straight up to the ceiling. I intersect that jet-stream of energy inches from its point of release, using the angled plane of plastic to beam sound into the room like a laser. Pressing the plastic straight onto the cones adds friction-filled distortion as it grinds against the drivers. Shifting its height depresses or accentuates different parts of the spectrum. So there's bump and grind friction and laser spatialization and physical filtering of sound and light, all fluidly unfolding and reflecting off the architecture as I whip and whirl the plastic through the air.
The blunt materiality of this system is key to the abandon it opens up for me in performance. The phenomenon requires no sensors, cameras, or click-tracks: just a wide-open spherical listening to the space and a muscular attention to the present. To play a room I have to hear past the amplification, train my attention on deep-order reflections, notice hot spots and odd geometries that make a reverberant structure feel strikingly alive. The filter sweeps in ANIMAL aren't inside the soundfile, they're in the live collision of molecules in the room, in the play of energy and movement and matter that constitutes precisely at that exact moment. This hyper-live, athletic approach to form gives ANIMAL its conceptual punch and throws a side-eyed wink to A.I. models prowling the perimeter: like, Algorithm this motherfucker, I dare you.
ANIMAL [for body and sound] is a solo performance project on a custom sound and light rig. The setup features two 12" speaker cones lying face up in an 8-foot square of tube lights. I stand inside that shifting frame of light, holding a 2-by-4 foot sheet of double-paned polycarbonate plastic in my hands, which I use to warp a fixed media composition coming out of the cones in real time. The process is intensely physical, both in terms of what it asks of my body (I am drenched in sweat by the end of a performance), and in terms of the pool ball physics of the causal chain. Think this path with me: the cones shoot soundwaves straight up to the ceiling. I intersect that jet-stream of energy inches from its point of release, using the angled plane of plastic to beam sound into the room like a laser. Pressing the plastic straight onto the cones adds friction-filled distortion as it grinds against the drivers. Shifting its height depresses or accentuates different parts of the spectrum. So there's bump and grind friction and laser spatialization and physical filtering of sound and light, all fluidly unfolding and reflecting off the architecture as I whip and whirl the plastic through the air.
The blunt materiality of this system is key to the abandon it opens up for me in performance. The phenomenon requires no sensors, cameras, or click-tracks: just a wide-open spherical listening to the space and a muscular attention to the present. To play a room I have to hear past the amplification, train my attention on deep-order reflections, notice hot spots and odd geometries that make a reverberant structure feel strikingly alive. The filter sweeps in ANIMAL aren't inside the soundfile, they're in the live collision of molecules in the room, in the play of energy and movement and matter that constitutes precisely at that exact moment. This hyper-live, athletic approach to form gives ANIMAL its conceptual punch and throws a side-eyed wink to A.I. models prowling the perimeter: like, Algorithm this motherfucker, I dare you.
ANIMAL [for body and sound] was composed, performed, and instrument designed by Ash Fure.
The audio file submitted is a live, studio recording of ANIMAL [for body and sound].
Studio recording:
Composed, performed and instrument designed by: Ash Fure
Produced, recorded and mixed by: Lewis Pesacov
Engineered by: Lewis Pesacov and Clint Welander
Mastered by: Beau Thomas
Recorded live at EastWest Studios in Hollywood, CA. This album was released by Smalltown Supersound in April 2025.
The video file submitted was recorded live during a performance at IRCAM in Paris, France during the 2024 Sonic Protest Festival.
ANIMAL [for body and sound] has been featured live at the following festivals: Long Play (New York City), Big Ears (Knoxville), Sonic Protest/IRCAM (Paris), The Venice Biennale of Music (Venice), Unsound (Krakow), CTM (Berlin), MINU Festival (Copenhagen), and L.E.V. Laboratorio Electrónica Visual (Gijon).
Ash Fure (US)
Ash Fure’s full-bodied sonic experiences work on the senses in startling ways. Called “purely visceral” and “staggeringly original” by The New Yorker, Fure’s live performances and total installations mobilize the elemental force of sound, the social muscle of listening, and our animal capacity to sense. Winner of awards from Creative Capital, Guggenheim, DAAD, FCA, Lincoln Center, Rome Prize and Fulbright, Fure holds a PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University and is Associate Professor of Sonic Arts at Dartmouth College, where she directs the MFA in Sonic Practice.
Ash Fure (US)
Ash Fure’s full-bodied sonic experiences work on the senses in startling ways. Called “purely visceral” and “staggeringly original” by The New Yorker, Fure’s live performances and total installations mobilize the elemental force of sound, the social muscle of listening, and our animal capacity to sense. Winner of awards from Creative Capital, Guggenheim, DAAD, FCA, Lincoln Center, Rome Prize and Fulbright, Fure holds a PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University and is Associate Professor of Sonic Arts at Dartmouth College, where she directs the MFA in Sonic Practice.
In her solo performance ANIMAL [for body and sound], Ash Fure creates a likewise sonically powerful and visually aesthetic experience by using a sheet of plastic to control filter sweeps for the audible frequencies of a fixed media track by physical actions in real-time. The sheet of plastic becomes hereby an interactive instrument for both the resulting sound and light situation, reflecting sound and light in correspondence within the movements. This results in a well-refined dramaturgy, carefully building up the tension and carrying the audience through the composition. Ash Fure releases impressive energy through the appearing sounds and her direct physical interaction with the audible, and the powerful performance also includes an artistic statement—for the physical presence of the human being in music performances, in contrast to AI models and algorithms.
In her solo performance ANIMAL [for body and sound], Ash Fure creates a likewise sonically powerful and visually aesthetic experience by using a sheet of plastic to control filter sweeps for the audible frequencies of a fixed media track by physical actions in real-time. The sheet of plastic becomes hereby an interactive instrument for both the resulting sound and light situation, reflecting sound and light in correspondence within the movements. This results in a well-refined dramaturgy, carefully building up the tension and carrying the audience through the composition. Ash Fure releases impressive energy through the appearing sounds and her direct physical interaction with the audible, and the powerful performance also includes an artistic statement—for the physical presence of the human being in music performances, in contrast to AI models and algorithms.