Violin with Þytur / Concert

As part of Intonal, a new work by Kent OlofssonKent Olofsson, titled ‘Violin with Þytur’ will be premiered by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir within the installation. The work links to their ongoing collaboration around space and agency within the field of music in the 21st century.

‘Þytur’* is a sound installation of 9 independent mono channels. The work was created for National Trust Formby** as part of Stefánsdóttir’s site-respondent work titled ‘Spherical White with Diamond’, which was commissioned for ‘NATUR-North Atlantic Tales’ in collaboration with the National Trust (UK). The site is that of shifting shores and one of the most mobile dunes in the UK. Drawing on the concept of multi-entity-performance (Rawlings 2019, Stefánsdóttir 2019), Þytur grew out of field recordings, site specific scores, sonifications, archival digging, activations and improvisations, as a sonic response to National Trust Formby. At the same time the work uses the site’s morphing landscapes and transmogrification, as a key to its composition. Þytur links therefore to entanglement and intra-relating, even in its state of erosion or adaption, meanwhile bearing the signature of much of Stefánsdóttir’s work, which resides at the intersection between human and environment.

Voices of words in Þytur: Maja Jantar (BE), Angela Rawlings (CA/IS), Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir (IS)

The text in the work is constructed by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir around Angela Rawlings work ‘Hocket barnacles’ found in ‘Sound of Mull’ (2019). Furthermore Þytur draws on ‘strengur’ (2019a) by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir.

* Þytur is Icelandic for ruffling or whistling.

** The premiere had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak but the commissioners have graciously allowed for a pre-premiere of Þytur as part of the Malmö Gallery Week.

Photo credits: Jason Lock