Mikhail
has been invited by Korean curator JungEun Kim to create a composition
for 'The Color of the City, SungNam', an exhibition which is going to take
place in SungNam, a city near Seoul, in November 2005. Mikhail’s
composition entitled 'Hum' will
first be broadcast at KyungWon University in SungNam and on listening
booths throughout the city for the entire duration of the festival. Among
the artists participating are Emil Goh & Gwak
Hyun Gon, Park Yong Seok, Ahn Sung Hee and Hong Eui Taek.
'Hum' is a composition for environmental sound, a narrator and a male singer. It explores humming as a creative sonorous practice of everyday life in an urban context. In contemporary cities like SungNam, the noise of street traffic is the continuous ‘soundtrack’ of most outdoor activities. However, in the midst of all this noise, as we navigate the city, we often become distracted, mentally removed from our immediate surrounding and begin to daydream, to sing or hum. The composition ‘Hum’ depicts the synchronous aural spaces we inhabit in this state of distraction: (1) the urban sonic space of the city and (2) the improvisatory sonic realm we generate as we hum. While humming, the lulling sound of our voice maps out a familiar ‘territory’; it creates a portable sonorous envelope, which acts as a ‘familiar stabilising force’. The sound of humming becomes a point of reference, an abstract territory and an aural anchor in the midst of noise. But humming is also a form of expression; it filters our urban navigation and transforms it from a merely directional and functional experience to an expressive one. The piece ‘Hum’ describes the progressive movement from the exterior urban soundscape into an inner space of meditation, fantasy and reflection, and explores humming as an activity which transports us and colours our experience of the city.
