SEMI SILENT

Conservation Conversation. A Sound Essay Author: La Pesch, 2021 (English, German, Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian) How to approach a new place? And what to take home from it? The rural area of Tescani in Romanian Moldavia is characterized by reverberating sounds waving between hills, farming, and plenty of dogs of course. Up the hill on the edge of the village lies a small museum in honor of the Romanian composer George Enescu. A mansion with its own little forest. But the grandeur of the past shows cracks. Humidity sneaks up the walls. Red, aristocratic patterned carpet hosts historic notes, furniture, and instruments. Mice ate the hammer felt of the piano – the piano on which Enescu finished his opera Oedipe. Today it is untouchable. Packs of visitors come in coaches, have a quick look, bath in some mellow notes, and climb their vehicle again to take off. What is conserved along the way? The piece follows, questions, deconstructs, and reconstructs the process of conservation. It starts a conversation with the ghosts of the past. Open exploration, improvisation, and coincidences play a major role in the piece as most of it is composed by movement in space on-location and not by layering tracks. It drifts intuitively between scenes, thoughts, and impressions. Essayistically, it weaves together reoccurring themes in a meandering way that invites listeners to get lost in the imagination of a place. Sound piece created during the SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES organized by Asociația Jumătatea plină and SEMI SILENT at the George Enescu National Museum in Tescani Village, Bacău County, Romania in September 2021. Carina Pesch (*1983), aka La Pesch, lives in Leipzig and works as sound and voice artist, author, director, and curator – mainly in the fields of radio, installation, performance, and the walking arts for public broadcasters, museums, international festivals, and cultural institutions. She co-curates the gathered listening event GERÄUSCHKULISSE. Her own art works show a strong sense for the specific characteristics of phenomena, people, and places. They oscillate between narrative and purely sound-based with strong fascination for the thin borderline between fiction and reality. Often she uses spoken word that transcends sentences and syntax and reaches a pure atmosphere or emotional quality. She chooses a subjective approach towards the world and sets in scene encounters creating contact points in dialogue. Her works have been honored with numerous residencies, awards, nominations, and stipends (e.g. Prix Phonurgia Nova, Grand Prix Nova, Prix Europa). www.textbote.de Recording, editing, and mixing by Carina Pesch for SEMI SILENT.