Chorus of Contact

kat matheson

Jun 18, 20243 min read

Chorus of Contact explores the complexity of our ‘contact zones’ - the moments of encounter where cultures converge and collide. Responding to London as an urban contact zone, this project navigates the layers of cultural exchange, incessant industrialisation, and societal transformation that are symptomatic of an ever-expanding, transnational condition.

Through sound recordings and graphic scores, artist Pheobe riley Law situates the concept of the contact zone in Canary Wharf - a site symbolic of historical and contemporary intercultural encounter. Phoebe’s recordings are amplified within an experiential installation developed in collaboration with artist Abbas Zahedi. A layered soundscape encourages audiences to listen collectively, whilst construction hoardings and bill posters evoke the eeriness of transitory space. The work encourages alternative ways of navigating contact zones through sound, acknowledging both the harmonies and dissonances in our relational environments.

Engaging with Édouard Glissant’s concept of the Archipelago, this project identifies with his poetic yet tangible definition as ‘spaces of relation where difference and interdependence coexist.’ Through this analytical framework, difference is acknowledged, established and, at times, left untranslated. Our curatorial methodology integrates opacities and unknowns as a means of building a counter-hegemonic practice - learning to accommodate the fluctuations and idiosyncrasies of our transnational world.

Chorus of Contact was a collaborative project developed as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme at the Royal College of Art. The installation was shown at the Battersea Campus in June 2024.

Curating team: Luis Lopez Garcia, Katerina Matheson, Victoria Stepanets, Jacqueline Schwartz, Shiyuan Wang, Fiona Xie, Margaret Liang.

Artists: Phoebe riley Law, Abbas Zahedi

Graphic Scores

These photographic & text scores are a way of representing sound + music through visual symbols rather than traditional music notation. Photographic / graphic / text scores can also be used as cues for listening and / or performing by anyone.

Pheobe chose graphic scores for this installation as a way of mapping each location and expressing contact zones in both a sonic and visual way to create an open dialogue between our different senses, the audience and herself. The scores were formulated during her sound walks along Deptford Docks, Canary Wharf and Greenland and South Docks. The scores are open, meaning they can be interpreted in whichever way each person decides, and are designed as hints for listening, performing or walking.

Use these texts as prompts for walking. They are open to interpretation. Statements like “easy”, “only just start”, “opposite of way too far” could be a calm, casual and simple walk.

'CAN - Canary Wharf

Sound

Walk through a park en route to somewhere else.

Listen out for snippets of conversations.

Interpret what you have overheard! as a direction if it makes sense to do so. For example if someone says go “right ok”, go right. If you hear no words, walk somewhere you consider to be still, or if you only hear the sound of traffic, walk in a noisy tempo, matching the intensity.

Cut up conversation snippets from Pheobe’s sound walk at Canary wharf made into a score:

(!)It’s not greatly easy these days

it would be principle

to only just start

like transit

but very humble

Opposite of way too far

'DEP - Deptford Docks

Sound

Listen out for snippets of conversations.

Interpret what you have overheard! as a direction if it makes sense to do so.

For example if someone says go “right ok”, go right. If you hear no words, walk somewhere you consider to be still, or if you only hear the sound of traffic, walk in a noisy tempo, matching the intensity.

Cut up conversation snippets from Pheobe’s sound walk at Deptford docks made into a score:

Before rush hour

myself

Open up

Ok Listen till 15 mins

Then we hang

have a call

ha ha ha