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Update #4: Funded!
Dear Friends
Just a quick note to let you all know that we have now reached our target. And on the first day of the Khmer New Year festival, which seems like a pretty good sign for the project!
Its been an amazing process, and great to find support from so many areas. Some of you have a previous link to Incidental, and some have only just found out about us, but have a strong personal connection to Cambodia or the issues raised by project. Either way, we are just very grateful to you all for the support you've given.
These funds will genuinely transform what we can do on the ground and will make a very direct, tangible difference to the experiences of our Khmer partners during and after this first phase of Neak Ta.
From this point on, things will start moving very quickly. We're actually arriving In Phnom Penh early next week, and I'll be back in touch before then to let you all know how you can keep up to date on the project.
But in the meantime, a sincere thank you to everyone for your generosity.
And wishing you all a very happy Khmer new year!
Update #3: Article in The New Internationalist
Hello!
Just to let you know that this morning's New Internationalist has written a short feature on the project and its context in Cambodia.
Fingers crossed, this should help get us towards our target over the next few days.
For those of you who aren't regular readers, NI is a great source of news on global politics, inequality and emergent / endangered culture - so its well worth a look more generally.
Update #2: And introducing Punisa and Vanna.
Next in our musician previews ... Pov Punisa and Suor Vanna.
Punisa plays the Roneat Aek, a large wooden or bamboo xylophone, and Vanna plays the Kong Wung Thum, another large instrument with 16 gongs. Again, both Punisa and Vanna are students at CLA and will be working with us on this project, as we explore how Khmer instruments can operate in the context of improvised music and electronic resampling.
The instruments are often played together in the Pin Peat orchestra, one of the largest Khmer music ensembles. This ensemble has a prominent role in Khmer culture - being used to accompany dance and and also traditional shadow puppetry. Its also used in funerals and other religious ceremonies.
In many ways, these are classic examples of South East Asian instruments, and with their unusual tuning and all the upper- and dis-harmonics ... this should produce some extremely interesting effects once we begin resampling and modulating.
You can hear a sample of a full Pin Peat Ensemble in the sound file below, which is taken from the Khmer Cultural Centre - if you're interested, you can download the full track there and a whole range of other classical Khmer songs at their site www.khmerculturalcenter.org
Anyway - hope you all enjoy. More soon...
Update #1: Introducing Chomneth
Hello,
I thought it might be interesting to introduce you to some of the musicians we'll be working with, and their instruments, since they are quite rare and most people probably aren't familiar with them.
First up is Lun Chomneth. Chomneth plays the Khsae Diew, an ancient instrument seen on the walls of temples in Cambodia dating back as far as the 10th century. It is a single-stringed instrument that uses a gourd resonating chamber that is pressed against the chest, creating all sorts of acoustic wah-wah / flanging effects.
I'm also adding a short sound file of the instrument being performed by Master Sok Duch. This track was recorded by our partners Cambodian Living Arts and is a great example of the instrument in use. The Khsae Diew is one of those fantastic instruments that seems to transition imperceptibly between South Asian musical voicings and something eerily similar to early american blues.
I have to say, we're quite excited about what is going to happen when we start to resample and modulate these instruments electronically ...
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on April 17, 2010.
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Hand-made, limited edition CD of the Neak Ta album, exclusive to Kickstarter supporters
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Hand printed CD and one print from the project exhibition (your choice of three)
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Hand printed and signed CD and 3 exhibition prints. We'll also feature your name on the CD artwork and you'll have the opportunity to review and discuss with us the results of our workshops as they happen throughout the residency via email / project blog.
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Sounds like you're serious. If you’re willing to part with this much money, we're guessing you probably have a real interest in Cambodia, and / or cultural development. So whilst we’ll give you all of the above, we’d also love to make you a project associate - to be part of the ongoing conversation with us and our Cambodian partners. Skype calls during the residency to discuss how the project is going, and to help us refine / evolve our plans throughout the six weeks. And then once we're back, an ongoing opportunity to share ideas and have a real influence as we decide on the future direction of the project over the coming years.
Project By
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David Gunn is the founding Director of Incidental, a cross-disciplinary creative organisation.
In the past 5 years, Incidental has developed a variety of projects in the UK, Europe and the US, with a diverse output including live perfomances, large-scale installations, software design and site-specific text installations.
Their projects have been commissioned by a variety of organisations including Opera North, Futuresonic Festival, Asian Development Bank, Manchester International Festival, Fundacao Serralves and The New York Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
Incidental’s work has also been featured extensively in press including the Guardian, Time Out, BBC, Wired Magazine, The Wire and numerous online publications.
David was also recently recently featured in the New Museum’s recent book “Younger Than Jesus”, a directory of the most promising international artists under 30 years of age.
