press:
https://www.abc.net.au/radio-australia/programs/pacificbeat/cooks-new-clothes/10450306
https://frieze.com/article/atlantic-project-excavating-plymouths-failed-utopias
https://coolhunting.com/culture/the-atlantic-project-brings-art-and-reflection-to-plymouth/
http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/utopian-reflections/
More about the research, soon to be published in a book.
250 years after the ‘First Voyage’ of James Cook to the Pacific, Cook’s New Clothes marks the occasion in September 1768 when Joseph Banks and Solander (the voyage artist) boarded the Endeavour ship in Plymouth, through a procession on the banks of the River Tamar, including a naval uniform made out of dog furs (with Maori artist Keren Ruki) and a Maori cloak woven from plastics, gathered from the Pacific Ocean. The processional walk from Devil’s Point to a video installation and in the Royal William Yard is a participatory performance in which an orchestra of trash instruments (Limbah Berbunyi, composed by Mo’ong) accompanies the carrying of objects, walking and playing sounds with the artists. The procession will follow a performance lecture, Stubbs’ Dingo, where Jessyca Hutchens and Tamara Murdock will speak to George Stubbs’ Portrait of a Large Dog, presenting stories of the Dingo that both pre-date and follow the paintings creation and the colonisation of Australia.
Cook’s New Clothes is a collaboration between Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll and Keren Ruki, with Simon Layton, Ruby Hoette, Ludovica Fales, Nikolaus Gansterer, Kirill Burlov, Mo’ong and Friends. This group of international artists will be joined by the general public in an event that turns recycled materials from the Pacific Ocean into performance and sound.
Queens House, Greenwich to Thames River September 22, 2018. 12 – 2pm
The Atlantic, Royal William Yard, Plymouth. Exhibition runs September 28th – October 21, 2018 – Performance September 30, 2018. 2:30pm
The processional performance commemorates Tupaia the Tahitian priest, navigator and translator that boarded the Endeavour, which departed Plymouth in 1768. This group of international artists were joined by the general public at the National Maritime Museum in an event that turned recycled materials from the Pacific Ocean into performance and sound. Assembled to critically reimagine and reconfigure the departure of Captain Cook’s Endeavour 250 years ago in a processional performance on the banks of the river, the participatory performance in this video began in the Queens House. The installation includes the collateral of these performances, including the dingo sound and uniform in the first rooms, the cloak for Tupaia, and trash instruments to interact with.
A film project by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll
Director of Photography – Ludovica Fales
Music – Mo’ong
Costumes – Keren Ruki
Dancer – Kirill Burlov
Drawings – Nikolaus Gansterer
Musicians – Simon Layton, Hana Qugana
Lead Carriers – Ruby Hoette, Emma Hoette
Camera – Ludovica Fales
Editing – Martina Moor
Additional cameras – Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Claire Loussouarn, Niza Ester Ritzvi, Raffaele Nocerino, Charlotte O’Donnell
Additional Musicians – Keren Ruki, Jo Walsh, Jack John Maurirere, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Chris Moffat, Julia Binter, Naomi Vogt, James Peachey
Additional Carriers – Azadeh Sarjooghian, Abigail Jacqueline Jones, Martha Flemming, Imma Ramos, Alex Wolfers, Katy Barrett
Additional sound – Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Nikolaus Gansterer, Jessyca Hutchens
Procession participants – Jody Toroa, Kay Robin, Stuart Blyth, Maria Amidu, Dimitri de Preux, Mark Condos, Leslie James, David Lappano, Islay Shelbourne, Tamara Murdoch
Rowers – Billy Smith, Brian Denholm, Cam Taylor, Carolyne Dick, Clare Lissaman, Elaine Tan, Jen Szeto, Lara Collins, Lawrence Vaike, Louise Harkness, Nikki Petelo, Paula De Ceglie, Sarah Ho, Siobhan Thomas, Susie Turner, Tala Petelo, Thor Harley.
Video that accompanies Mo’ong and Friends performance of the Limbah Berbunyi | Trash Instruments
Full Album
Gongs made of gas bottles, bagpipes of plumbing offcuts, a biscuit tin sitar, PVC pipe elephant trunk roaring, oil gallon double base, flute of plastic waste, toothbrush guitar fret, broken window pane gamelan instruments.
Limbah Berbunyi are a collection of trash instruments, made of erstwhile rubbish. Limbah Berbunyi is also the score of an hour long piece of music, written in four parts by J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi, and played by various musicians in the band Mo’ong and Friends.
The instruments were built in a collaboration with Muhammad Sulthoni Konde, an expert in recycling waste into art objects. It is a collaboration in sound made within the image of the sound producing objects. As environmental activist, Konde’s particular interest is in making non-biodegradable trash useful again. Together they have designed instruments that can be played acoustically, and are a mix of the instruments of the Indonesian Gamelan and of European flutes, violins, double base.
Each instrument has an onomatopoeic name, this is predominantly how names are made in Indonesian: Pret, Gajah Pipa, Blek Siter, Tong Bass, Demung Kaca, Saron Kaca, Slenthem Kaca. The name follows the Rasa (sense) of the sound produced. The composition is written in symbolic drawings, rather than notes. The pattern is comparable to the gamelan, but using trash frees it from the necessity of traditional patterns that the gamelan conventionally uses. At its core, this subversion of any commodifiyable tradition brings this into the space of experimental sound and contemporary installation art.
The performance of Limbah Berbunyi reveals a surprise in that the instrumental music does not sound like trash. One could be a bagpipe, or a Slompret (a traditional instrument from East Java) which sings, or rather, is sung, while the audience wonder about its origin. The bagpipe, for example, sounds like traditional Indonesian flutes: Pui-pui (Makassar, South Celebes), Serunai (Minang, West Sumatra), Slompret (East Java), but it is played on the Javanese Slendro scale.
Accompanying the live performance of Limbah berbunyi is a slow film the artist Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll made in rehearsals in Jogjakarta during January 2017.
There is an accompanying CD recording and a catalogue printed on recycled paper with photographs and texts about each Limbah berbunyi instrument’s different expression.