OUR ANCESTORS ARE TREES by Tahere Nourani
solo sound performance for amplified objects – electric bass – flute – text & field recordings
From the moment we are born we are put into boxes. We learn to fit ourselves and others into these boxes, because in a world that moves so fast, there's no time for complexity and depth. These simplified "group identities" not only define and cage us, but also divide us into "us" and "them".
One of the most significant forms of othering is the separation of human from "nature". A discriminatory mindset that reduces a universe of complex, colorful diversity to a hierarchical binary system of black and white, human versus nature. In this piece I focus on the contrasting auditory aspects of human-made environments versus those untouched (or less so) by humans, exploring speciesism and the profound implications of this discriminatory outlook on all life on our planet.
Tahereh Nourani is a Vienna-based composer and sound artist focusing on electro-acoustic and experimental music. In her work, she explores the potential of slowness and silence as well as the connection between sound, text and video. Using improvisation, extended playing techniques, amplified objects and field-recordings, she creates reduced, organic and archaic sound spaces that span an arc between ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Memory Response) and noise.
Nourani is a member of QMA artist collective (2024), SHAPE+ Artist (2023) and winner of the PhonoECHOES Award for Experimental Sound Art (2021). Both solo and in various projects, such as the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra, she has performed at festivals such as Moers (DE), UH Fest (HU) and Üle Heli (EE). She studied European classical flute at Tehran University of Arts and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) and was Artist in Residence at AQB and Hotel Pupik.