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Project Website: http://slought.org/content/11321/
Please join us on Saturday, March 18, 2006 from 8-10pm at Slought Foundation for the Sound Field @ Slought series, featuring live music by Ghost Notes, an experimental music ensemble, featuring Domenico Sciajno, Marina Peterson, and Gene Coleman, in conjunction with a special screening of Onibaba (1964),
Kaneto Shindo’s chilling folktale and singular cinematic experience.
The film Onibaba is set within the wind-swept marshes of war-torn medieval Japan, where an impoverished mother and her daughter-in-law eke out a lonely, desperate existence. Forced to murder lost samurai and sell their belongings for grain, they dump the corpses down a deep, dark hole and live off of their meager spoils. When a bedraggled neighbor returns from the skirmishes, lust, jealousy, and rage threaten to destroy the trio’s tenuous existence, before an ominous, ill-gotten demon mask seals the trio’s horrifying fate. Omnibaba is often cited as a preeminent example of the jidai-geki, or period drama, an enduring Japanese film genre that refers to any Japanese film set before 1868, the first year of the Meiji Restoration, which initiated Japan's modern era. Often employed as a way of retelling traditional stories or recreating epic historical events, the jidai-geki has evolved over time to encompass a broad range of styles and perspectives—from bloody samurai swordplay adventures to searching social and political criticism.
Domenico Sciajno is a composer, electronic musician and double bass player and lives in Palermo, Sicily. He attended the Royal Conservatory of Den
Haag in Holland, and subsequently studied double bass with Stefano
Scodanibbio. His work frequently addresses indeterminacy and the live
processing of acoustic instruments by electronic devices or computers. He frequently uses texts, electronics, and visual projections in combination with a choreographic use of the space. From 1992 he has participated as a composer and improviser in a series of contemporary and experimental music festivals, and has released recordings with a variety of independent labels including Leo Records (UK), Fringes, Bowindo, Takla (Italy), and Ersthwhile (USA). Since 1994 he has assisted and collaborated with the American electro-acoustic composer Alvin Curran. In the 2004 Prix Ars Electronica, his collaboration with Alvin Curran, OUR UR, was awarded an honorary mention. In 2002, he was commissioned by Steim (Center for Development of Interactive Systems for Performance in Amsterdam, Holland) to create a multi-channel sound spatialization system. He has also created a variety of interactive sound installations, the most recent of which, Espiral, premiered at the Stuttugart FilmWinter festival in 2004. In 1995 he founded the association Antitesi, and from 1995 to 1998 organized a series of
concerts and small festivals (Antitesi in Musica 1995/1996, Folk it out!
1997, i(n)terazioni 1998, and Inaudito! 1999). In 1997 he formed the
Fringes record label, and in 2003 he began the Bowindo label as well as the
collective iXem (Italian eXperimental Electronic Music). He has performed and collaborated with musicians including Keith Rowe, Atau Tanaka, Jim O’Rourke, Elliot Sharp, Fred Frith, John Butcher, Kaffe Matthews, Kim Cascone, Toshimaru Nakamura, Otomo Yoshide, Lionel Marchetti, and Eric M.
This program is made possible in part through the generous sponsorship or support of Sound Field NFP and the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music
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Domenico Sciajno