Shinonome by TOMOKO HOJO + RAHEL KRAFT

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For Shinonome 東雲, an old Japanese word that describes a specific experience of light at dawn, Tomoko Hojo and Rahel Kraft explored the acoustics of dawn in relationship to walking. Due to reduced visual inputs our auditory sensibility is expanded and we perceive sounds which we normally don’t hear. Dawn is a transition between night and day, dreaming and being awake, light and dark, silence and loudness, natural and supernatural, a daily phenomenon which is rarely connected to the sonic but rather to the visual impact during the blue hour.

'Shinonome' consist of field and voice recordings, electronic and acoustic sounds. Several sonic interventions and listening walks in response to structure and atmosphere are building the source material. The exchange of recorded dawn-diaries, as well as Japanese, Chinese, English and German literature related the theme made a starting point for shared perceptions. Hojo+Kraft even travelled to northern Norway to record and compose during the polar lights.

Originally, this work is created as geo-localised audio walk during a residency at ZKM - Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Germany 2018 for MyCityMySounds. It is placed at the Schlossgarten in Karlsruhe, a place between nature/city, animals/humans, noice/silence, center/periphery.

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Tomoko Hojo (JP) and Rahel Kraft (CH) have developed a collaborative site-specific sonic practice since 2016.

With soundscape studies, performance, text and improvisation they compose works focusing on the hidden, faint and intimate relationship between sound and place.

Their first major project was Reborn Homes Through My Voice (Tokyo, Japan, 2017), a sound installation in an old Japanese house. The base of the work was formed by numerous conversations with local inhabitants, centered around personal perceptions of sound of homes. It led to sonic investigations of the exhibition space and different forms of composition with memories, stories and objects. The following project INNERN (Scuol, Switzerland, 2018) redefined the concept of home, not only as a physical living space, but also as any kinds of place that makes one feel like home. It was their first geo-localized audio walk project, followed by two more, Shinonome (Karlsruhe, ZKM for MyCityMySounds, 2019) and Grass Eater Diary (Nakanojo, Japan, 2019). These works utilize an App as an interface to interact between sound, the environment and walking. Hojo+Kraft also transformed past site specific works as a listening performance. My Place / My Sound has been performed at I’Klektik London, ZKM Karlsruhe and Kyoto Art Center. In 2020, their track The Hours Descend was released by the British label nonclassical as a part of the compilation album Fieldwave, curated by Nick Luscombe.

Both graduated from the MA in Sound Arts, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London in 2016.

hojokraft.com

Tracklist

1.	Resounding Entities	1:30

2.	Revealing Unknown Beings	2:35

3.	Melted Into Darkness	3:34

4.	While Your Body Is Asleep	2:15

5.	The Lowest Level of the Ocean	5:03

6.	The Hours Descend	2:50

7.	Far Rumbling Vibrations	3:03

8.	I Open Every Door	1:43

9.	Elastic Rubber Boat	2:48

10.	The Smell of a Dream	5:03

11.	Probabilities and Possibilities	3:32

12.	Shinonome	17:36

Credits

released July 10, 2020

Recorded in Karlsruhe, Košice, Narvik, Vienna and Stockholm, Winter 2018/2019

Composed, performed, recorded by Tomoko Hojo and Rahel Kraft
Created during a residency at ZKM Karlsruhe Germany

All text written by Hojo+Kraft with citations by Horace’s Odes, Sei Shonagon, E.E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Po Chü-i

Mixing and Mastering by Rahel Kraft
Photograph by Tomoko Hojo

Special thanks to Richard Chartier and the wolves who live in the northernmost animal park

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