Siren: a cathedral of sound and light
Despite all the unkind things I’ve said about him, I’m in awe of Alex Ferguson.
He fired off a comprehensive "review":http://plankmagazine.com/review/performance-art/siren-waiting-spaceship-... of *Siren* the very night he saw it! Dear god, Alex, how did you do it? Here it is nearly 48 hours since I experienced this sound installation by Ray Lee from the UK (part of the "PuSh Festival":http://pushfestival.ca/index.php?mpage=home) and I’m still having trouble formulating my thoughts. Alex does such a good job of describing the actual event that I suggest you check out his review for yourself if you haven’t already (besides, he needs the hits).
I guess in one sense, it’s not too surprising that I should struggle to describe this show. I’m trying to communicate in words an experience that moves far beyond language. I’m also worried that in describing something that is at once elemental and elusive, this review will quickly devolve into the type of hyperbole beloved of those who write about wine or gourmet restaurants – a mishmash of unlikely nouns and adjectives. And in descending into that language I will make Siren sound like a profound exercise in pretentiousness – which it most certainly is not – and actually turn you off the thought of going to see this show – which you most certainly should go and see.
The show – performance (I’m not even sure what to term it) – takes place in the performance space of the Roundhouse, cleared of all seating and risers. Within this surprisingly beautiful and expansive space maybe two dozen tripods of varying sizes, the tallest being three metres, have been constructed. They are fenced off from the public and there are areas – think of them as view (or more correctly sound) platforms – where you can stand, surrounded by the tripods. On the top of each tripod is a rotating arm with loudspeaker and a red light at each end. When you enter the space, there is stillness. The two men who operate the installation – Lee and Harry Dawes – are standing amongst the pylon forest, dressed in grey suits. They then move through the space, turning on the tripods, using a screwdriver to tune the electronic tone that each device admits. They then start the arms spinning. The two men patiently move through the forest until all the arms are spinning and there is a blur of red light everywhere.
To be honest, I have no idea how much of this tuning sequence is sheer performance. There is no doubt that Lee and Dawes are changing the pitch of the tone generators but are they going for a specific sound or do they just go by feel so that each performance is different? Whatever the case, it is fascinating to watch them at work and to see how they deftly move through the forest to avoid getting smacked in the back of the head by one of the spinning arms.
The space fills with sound. It put me in mind of an orchestra warming up before a symphony; one of the most exhilarating sounds in the world, filled with a sense of expectation of what is to come. Unlike many symphonies, there is no let-down when the actual concert starts: with Siren the exhilarating warm-up is the performance. The soundscape is textured and layered. As you move around the space, the experience changes almost as if you are passing through different cones of sound. The sounds become either more intense or distant depending on where you are. It is even possible to alter your experience by standing in one spot and training your hearing on different tripods. There is something very consuming about this experience. I’m an inherent people watcher but for some reason, although I might briefly watch someone absorbed in the work, my eyes didn’t linger. There is something intensely private about Siren.
This sense of isolation was only broken once for me. The lights in the space are turned out in two stages. At the first stage a few spotlights remain. A young woman standing across from me was picked out of the darkness by a blast of white light. I watched her for a brief moment across an alien land and soundscape.
And then it went dark.
In the darkness, the red lights continue to spin. Just as with the sound, the effects from the lights change depending on where you stand and even how you watch. At times the lights are like a series of perfect squares frozen across the darkness, at other times they look wild and random as if alive. Perhaps most fascinating for me is how I start to fill in for the darkness. I try to create an explanation for what those red spinning lights might be. I’m reminded of Alex’s Martian fireflies. He’s right, wherever we are, it’s not Kansas. It is a powerful demonstration of how the human mind looks for patterns. Even when we know that we’re just in a dark room watching LED lights spinning around, our imaginations begin to create narratives, no matter how unlikely.
Then, methodically, Lee and Dawes turn off the tripods one by one. They carefully pack up the sound until we are down to just a few, then two, then one.
And then none.
And, again, as Alex says, we are aware of our surroundings in a heightened way. I thought I could hear rain on the roof of the Roundhouse, but it wasn’t raining, maybe it was water rushing through pipes. I don’t know but I felt physically altered.
People left Siren the way I imagine people might leave church: quiet and contemplative. I always go on about how theatres should be thought of as cathedrals and performance as a sort of religious experience. Well, Lee has transformed the Roundhouse into a cathedral. Go and worship before it’s too late.
_Siren is composed and devised by Ray Lee. Performed by Lee and Harry Dawes. Produced by Simon Chatterton. Technician: Stavroula Kounadea. For for more information go "here":http://pushfestival.ca/index.php?mpage=shows&spage=main&id=69#show to worship._