THOMASAGERGAARDWORKS
Improvisationsworkshop – Alene med sig selv
Pitch
Alene med sig selv er et tværæstetisk projekt for unge, hvor musik, stemme og dukketeater mødes i et sanseligt kvadrofonisk lydrum. Workshop og forestilling giver de unge en intens oplevelse af identitet, fællesskab og modet til at stå alene – midt i kunstens centrum.
Projektet er en tre ugers tværæstetisk workshop og forestillingsforløb målrettet unge i gymnasier, HF og ungdomsskoler. Workshoppen tager udgangspunkt i temaet Alene med sig selv – en udforskning af unges erfaringer med identitet, ensomhed, angsten for at gå glip (FOMO), og styrken i at turde møde sig selv, som man er.
Forløbet ledes af:
Randi Pontoppidan, vokalkunstner og komponist
Thomas Agergaard, saxofonist, komponist og billedkunstner
Svend Erik Kristensen, skuespiller og dukkefører
De tre kunstnere mødes i et tværæstetisk spændingsfelt mellem musik, stemme, krop, tekstur og scenisk handling. Improvisationen er det bærende princip: et stramt struktureret, men åbent format, hvor lyd, stemme og figurteater udfordrer og spejler hinanden.
Forgotten Beats
Dear Thomas,
I am attaching the sound that this is probably about.
You are hearing the Earth's movement over three months, transposed exactly 19 octaves.
You will hear two sharp cracks—these are two major earthquakes from December 2004. The last one is the Sumatra earthquake. I must warn you against listening at high volume, as the two cracks are very sharp. But once they have passed, you can turn up the volume and enjoy the Earth's pure reverberation, which is very close to the tone A (though in practice, it is A 19 octaves below).
The phenomenon is that the Earth swells for about 10 minutes and then shrinks for another 10 minutes. This oscillation mode is called the "breathing mode," and due to its perfect symmetry, the reverberation time is very long—in practice, several months.
Here is also a link to a PowerPoint presentation with many sounds. Extract everything into the same folder, and then the links should work when clicked.
Finally, you can listen to my old Natursyn broadcast from 2008. Here, we go through a whole series of Earth's sounds and resonances. Don't expect beautiful new-age sounds—this is more of a chaotic stomp shop. But that's just how reality is.
I hope this gives you something to work with. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Best regards,
Bo Holm Jacobsen
P.S. All links have been removed as they are no longer active.
Forgotten Beats
In August 2016, Uffe Elbæk, leader of the Danish political party Alternativet, invited composer, musician and event-maker Thomas Agergaard to become artist-in-residence at the Danish Parliament, Christiansborg.
Agergaard accepted and proposed a sound installation created from recordings of Danish politicians’ heartbeats. The installation, sponsored by the Danish loudspeaker company Artcoustic, was planned for Christmas 2016—the festival of hearts.
As a textual counterpart, I planned a series of 24 meetings with experts about issues central to contemporary society. The experts themselves would select the subjects. The ambition proved too great, but several important meetings took place. Emails sent from my Christiansborg office bearing the Danish Parliament’s logo received remarkably prompt responses.
Glacier Meal
I met Minik Rosing, Professor of Geology at the University of Copenhagen, to discuss Greenland’s vast deposits of mineral-rich glacier meal.
The meeting led to an agreement to test glacier meal in the fertile soil of Lundsgaard Manor near Kerteminde. I am sharing photographs from that meeting because the results are only now becoming apparent, as reported in the Danish Radio programme Gold and Green Forests.
Green GDP
Professor Jens Villiam Hoff and I organised a meeting about green GDP. Ole Gravlund of Statistics Denmark, who was involved in the project, also participated. Jens later received DKK 4.9 million to fund a PhD and a postdoctoral position.
Green GDP is fundamental to the transition towards a sustainable society. It asks what production truly costs: excess nitrogen in our waters, pesticide-related bee deaths, contaminated groundwater and the closure of drinking-water wells.
Although the EU and UN have promoted green accounting, governments remain reluctant to move beyond conventional GDP.
MRSA
I also organised a larger meeting about MRSA. Participants included:
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Hans Jørgen Kolmos, Professor of Microbiology at Odense University Hospital
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Christian Christensen, representing Coop and the retail sector
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Camilla Udsen of the Danish Consumer Council, TÆNK
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Vagn Henriksen and Jesper Lund Larsen of the trade union 3F
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Christian Poll of Alternativet
Social Control in Our Society
This was a smaller, intense meeting that remains vivid in my memory. The discussion was deeply sensitive and moving, and several participants chose to remain anonymous.
Among those attending was Lise-Lotte Duch of FAKTI, a support centre for immigrant women in Brønshøj.
