Harvestworks Art and Technology Program presents a Song for two Mothers / Occam IX, two compositions by composer Laetitia Sonami and her mentor Eliane Radigue in the exhibition TimeBased Art. Originally performed in real-time with Sonami’s Spring Spyre instrument, and recently released by Black Truffle Records in LP form, Sonami re-visits these compositions for a first time multi-channel sound experience spatialized by master audio engineer Paul Geluso.
a Song for two Mothers (2023) – (aka Song of Tsar) “Devoid of spatial or temporal direction”, this recent composition for the Spring Spyre explores contrasting and unstable states. These are made possible by the instrument’s springs moving thru pre-trained neural networks.
OCCAM IX (20 by Eliane RADIGUE composed for Laetitia SONAMI. Occam IX inscribes itself in a larger series of compositions entitled OCCAM OCEAN created by composer Eliane Radigue. This ninth composition was created with Laetitia Sonami and was the first composition for the newly conceived Spring Spyre.
📢 “a Song for Two Mothers and OCCAM XI” By Laetitia Sonami
🗓 DATE & TIME: May 17 – Aug 24, 2025. Open to the public: 11 am to 5 pm on Sat and Sun. Opening: Saturday May 17, 2025 from 3 – 5 pm. Performance June 21, 2025.
📍 LOCATION: Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
After decades of aversion to documenting her work on recordings, a Song for two Mothers / Occam IX treats listeners to two side-long performances with the Spring Spyre: OCCAM IX was the very first piece developed for the instrument and a Song for two Mothers, the most recent, the two contrasting remarkably in sound palette, energy and form.
Harvestworks present an in-situ spatialized rendition of these two pieces for the first time.
https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/album/a-song-for-two-mothers-occam-ix
Born in France in 1957, Sonami studied with Éliane Radigue in Paris before moving to California in 1978 to study electronic music at Mills College, going on to make important innovations in the field of live electronics interfaces and multi-media performance. Sonami is perhaps most closely associated with one of her inventions, the lady’s glove, an arm-length tailored glove fitted with movement sensors allowing the performer fluidly to control digital sound parameters and processing, as well as motors, lights and video playback. Having performed with the ladys’ glove for 25 years, Sonami retired it in 2016, turning her attention to the interface/instrument heard and pictured here, the Spring Sprye.
In Sonami’s own description, “The Spring Spyre is composed of three thin springs that are attached to reverb tank pickups, mounted on a metal ring. The audio generated when the springs are touched, rubbed or struck is analyzed in Max/MSP. The extracted features are then used to train machine learning models in Wekinator and Rapidmax and control the audio synthesis in real time. We never actually hear the springs.”
Occam IX is a radically different proposition. At the outset of Sonami’s exploration of the Spring Sprye, she asked her former teacher Éliane Radigue to compose a piece for it—and her: like all of Radigue’s work since she ceased working with analogue electronics at the beginning of the 21st century, Occam IX is written not only for an instrument but also for a particular performer. These scores are developed verbally, through meetings and conversations between performer and composer; each is grounded in an image (usually kept from listeners, to avoid influencing their experience); all magnify the subtlest acoustic phenomena and require great commitment and patience from the performer. Sonami’s is one of the few Occam pieces to make use of electronics, bringing it closer to Radigue’s famous longform pieces for ARP 2500. Beginning from a rumbling low tone, the listener is gradually immersed in slowly lapping waves of synthetic tones, eventually thinning out into delicate bell-like pings against a background of white noise, reminiscent of one of the most beautiful sections of Kyema from the Trilogie de la Mort.
On June 21, 2025, Laetitia Sonami will perform “Since you’re Here, v2” , an electronic improvisation with the lady’s ball(s) within the site of her installation on Governors Island.
Artist Statement: During the pandemic, I tried to think of the simplest possible instrument I could make. Of all the sensors I had sewn onto the lady’s glove, the accelerometers were the most expressive. So I used a wireless accelerometer on my wrist and moved a ball of wires…
There is an illusion that the ball has embedded sensors, but it can actually be any objects. The data from the accelerometer is parsed in Max-MSP and fed into the Machine Learning software (here I mostly use RapidMax) which then controls the models which I have prepared for realtime audio synthesis. Certain gestures can also change the models being used. The ball amplifies the gesture and allows me to “locate” the sounds. The larger the ball, the higher the resolution.
Artist Bios
Laetitia Sonami
Sonami’s sound performances, live film collaborations and sound installations focus on issues of presence and participation. She has devised new gestural controllers for performance and applies new technologies and appropriated media to achieve an expression of immediacy through sound, place and body.
Recent collaborations include an improvisation duo, Sparrows and Ortolans, with James Fei; and She is a Butcher in my dreams for Zeena Parkins.
Sonami has performed at numerous festivals across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and China. Awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts (2002), Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award (2000), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2000), Studio Pass-Harvestworks Residency (2001), and a Creative Work Fund Award (2000) for a collaboration with Nick Bertoni and the Tinkers Workshop. Sonami lives in Oakland, California and was a guest professor in the Music Department at Mills College, CA until its demise in the spring of 2023.
LOVELY MUSIC is to release Sonami’s double CD “Dangerous Women” featuring her works from 1985-2005 this spring.
Éliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She began working in the 1950s with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. In the sixties she started working with the Arp 2500 which became her sole instrument. Since 2001, Radigue only collaborates with instrumentalists, and applies a process of composition which resembles the means of oral transmission of traditional music. The first such collaboration was initiated by contrabassist Kasper T. Toeplitz. Subsequent projects in this vein include the three Naldjorlak, as well as the monumental Occam Océan, performed by some of the most esteemed musicians of our time. This cycle (still in progress) already comprises more than 70 pieces for instrumental forces ranging from solo to orchestral.
Paul Geluso has been credited as mix engineer, mastering engineer, producer, and musician on hundreds of music and film titles. As composer and sound designer, his work has been exhibited internationally receiving support from the New York State Council for the Arts and Meet The Composer. He is currently on the full-time faculty at New York University where he is developing 3D sound capture and post production methods that integrate height channels into surround systems. Geluso has served as the chief sound engineer at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts, Outpost Digital and as visiting professor at Bard College and the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University.
🌐 WEBSITE
Website
FILM INTERVIEWS
Eliane Radigue et Laetitia Sonami @ Fondation Cartier (2015)
the ear goes to the sound – Documentary by rsitoy (2014)
Building relationships with the lady’s glove -Cycling’74, interview by SUE-C (2006)
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1990’s)
Roulette TV (1990’s)
Noisy People – DVD by Tim Perkis (2006)
INTERVIEWS
Clubism #1 Radio Podcast– Nov.2023 -Play and interview with Hugo Lioret and Carreidas – Nathan Marie (en francais) – discussing the crossovers between experimental music, dj music, club music, research…
WNYC August 2017 – with curator Risha Lee, Laetitia Sonami, and sound designer Bob Bielecki
Laetitia Sonami + Rebecca Fiebrink – Array (2018)
Keep Breaking Things – ozobot (2018)
Decay Cast (2007) – Interview with Jsun McArthy and Mike Dadonna
Jerry Hunt (1993): On the work and work procedure of Laetitia Sonami
