Intercalary

Join us on leap day for a late summer evening in the gallery of live electronic sound performance. Intercalary is a term used to describe a time period inserted between others, such as a leap day, and in botany as cells situated between zones of permanent tissue like a shoot growing at the base of a leaf. This event features live immersive audio works from mHz, Rachel Shearer and Richard Francis, filling the gallery with an active listening experience of the in between.

MHz will present his work Sometime After Two, Somewhere Else, a reflection on living in suspense between two geographies, two time spans, and two selves. This work is a longform composition that explores the interaction between sound (two basic harmonic waves) and space (the medium through which they propagate). Shearer will combine disintegrated field recordings, aural textures and tones generated by synthesiser, processed flute and voice aiming to create immersive shifting textures of sound. While Francis will be using an analogue / digital combination system to explore diffraction and reflection within the multi-level gallery space via the PA diffusion system.

Mo H. Zareei aka mHz is a Te Whanganui-a-Tara based electronic musician, sound artist, and researcher, using custom-built software and hardware. His artistic practice covers a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. Zareei’s work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production, and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles.His albums have been released on Important Records (us), Line (us), Leerraum (ch), and Kasuga Records (de).He has exhibited his work at events and festivals across Aotearoa and internationally in Brisbane, Montreal, Vancouver, Dubai, London, The Hague, New York and Tehran. Sometime After Two, Somewhere Else was commissioned and published by Leerraum in 2020.

Rachel Shearer (Rongowhakaata, Tangata Tiriti) is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Over the years she has experimented with a range of sonic practices: site specific installations; collaborator as a music maker and sound designer for film, dance, performance; and, practice-led research/writing about the materiality of sound through western and Māori philosophies and technological practices. Shearer has released material on Xpressway (NZ), Flying Nun (NZ), Ecstatic Peace (US), Corpus Hermeticum (NZ), and Family Vineyard (US). Her works have been performed, presented, or exhibited across Aotearoa and internationally, in New Delhi, Brisbane and London. Her most recent public commission, The Flooded Mirror (2011) is a permanent sound installation situated in the Wynyard Quarter on Auckland’s newly developed waterfront.

Richard Francis is a sound artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau working with electronic systems, feedback, and field recordings, with a focused attention to sound in its environmental context and how this can inform improvisation. In his compositions there is always a crossing of analog and digital technologies. He has released solo and collaborative albums on Senufo Editions (Italy), Entr’acte (Belgium), Glistening Examples (USA), Korm Plastics (Netherlands), and Aufabwegen (Germany). Recent collaborators include Frans De Waard, Ralf Wehowsky, Anla Courtis, Bruce Russell, Mattin, Jason Kahn and Francisco Lopez. His works have been performed, presented, or exhibited across Aotearoa, and internationally in Madrid, New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Zurich, Geneva, and Hong Kong.

Image: mHz performing live. Image courtesy the artist.