BRISBANE POWERHOUSE LAUNCHES ITS PROVOCATIVE FESTIVAL OHM
29 NOV 2022
Brisbane Powerhouse launches its provocative festival ΩHM (pronounced OHM), an immersive program of music and art set to become one of the city’s most talked about cultural experiences.
From pioneering musicians to post-genre artists, ΩHM pushes boundaries with performances by world-leading artists, including Future Islands, Peaches, The Chills, Kae Tempest, black midi, Nakhane, Monolake + Electric Indigo (Robert Henke +Susanne Kirchmayr) and more.
Curated by the founder of independent Australian label Room40, Lawrence English and Brisbane Powerhouse Arts Program Director, Brad Spolding, ΩHM showcases adventurous approaches to sound, music and performance through hypnotic installations, cutting-edge new works, international headliners and emerging local acts.
Brisbane Powerhouse CEO/Artistic Director Kate Gould said ΩHM was an innovative program attracting national attention.
“As the leader of contemporary art and culture in Queensland, we’re bringing some of the world’s most innovative creators and performers to Brisbane,” Gould said.
“Building on the cultural legacy of our iconic venue, audiences can expect to see more inspired art that agitates and connects.”
Announced today, ΩHM adds a host of boundary-pushing performances and installations to its program. Legendary cinematic remixers Hear My Eyes return to Brisbane with the premiere of Pan’s Labyrinth x Sleep D, audiovisual artist Robin Fox, Los Angeles-based composer Yann Novak and Iranian sound artist mHz take over the Powerhouse in a triple bill of audiovisual performances; and in an Australian premiere Swiss artist Zimoun presents two breathtaking installations which will appear exclusively to Brisbane.
Lawrence English said that ΩHM traces the lines between practices that fall beyond the usual realms and genres we encounter.
“Works like Zimoun’s kinetic sound sculptures, Robin Fox’s expansive audiovisual laser environments and Hear My Eyes: Pan’s Labyrinth x Sleep D exist at a special nexus of sight, sound and space,” English said.
“These dynamic pieces capture intensity and energy matched with a fearless sense of focus. The works are simply mind-blowing.”
Building on the success of sold-out live score shows across Australia, such as No Country for Old Men x Tropical F*ck Storm and Suspiria x King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, the latest venture from Hear My Eyes brings together sonic masterminds Sleep D and the magical world of the Academy Award-winning film, Pan’s Labyrinth. Bear witness as the enchanted world of the classic dark fantasy is brought to life by the signature driving rhythms, hypnotic bass and worlds of echo by defiantly DIY duo, and pillars of Melbourne underground, Sleep D. Sitting somewhere between a film screening and a live concert, Hear My Eyes: Pan’s Labyrinth x Sleep D invites audiences into a new sensory realm that is not to be missed.
Enter a space of epic proportions with large-scale audio-visual creations that merge light, laser and sound. Robin Fox presents the Australian premiere of Triptych, described as an audio-visual space-time carving, direct from its world premiere at UNSOUND KRAKOW. The show employs three RGB laser projectors working in synchronicity to realise a full-colour geometry. Robin’s audio-visual performances synchronise sound and visual electricity and have been performed in over 60 cities worldwide including recent installations: Night Sky for Brisbane Festival, Aqua Luma for Mona Foma 2021, Library of Light for Illuminate Adelaide 2021, BEACON for Mona Foma 2022 and MONOCHORD for Rising Festival 2022.
Yann Novak is an interdisciplinary artist and composer whose work is guided by his unique perspective as a queer autodidact. Informed by his partial colour blindness and dyslexia, Novak uses sound and light to explore how these intangible materials can act as catalysts to focus our awareness on our own direct experience. Novak’s diverse body of work – which includes audio-visual installations, performances, sound diffusions, recording and prints – invites participants to imagine how divergent our individual perceptions of reality can be.
The work of New Zealand-based Iranian sound artist mHz (aka Mo H. Zareei), highlights the beauty in the basics of sound and light production and audio-visual elements that draw inspiration from material and architecture. mHz has exhibited his work across the globe in venues such as ISEA (Montreal/Vancouver/Dubai), SETxCTM festival (Tehran), NIME (London), Modern Body Festival (The Hague), ICAD (New York) and NZ Festival (Wellington), while his electronic music projects have been published by via Important Records (US), leerraum (CH), and Kasuga Records (DE).
In what will be his first time exhibiting to Australian audiences exclusively for ΩHM, Swiss artist Zimoun presents Material Concerns. Zimoun builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound using commonplace industrial objects. He principally uses simple materials from everyday life and industrial usage, such as cardboard, DC motors, cables, welding wire, wooden spars or ventilators, and develops small apparatuses which generate a tonal and visual complexity once activated.
These artists join an already full line-up of pioneers including Peaches, Monolake + Electric Indigo and The Chills, alongside formative acts such as Kae Tempest, Nakhaneand black midi. Experience something other worldly and explore the possibilities with ΩHM, Brisbane’s newest cultural mainstay celebrating provocative thinking and adventurous approaches to sound, music, light and performance.
ΩHM is presented by Brisbane Powerhouse and proudly supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
For more information please contact Scrabble PR:
Gabe Cramb | [email protected] | 0419 798 995
Layla Carroll | [email protected] | 0421 191 860
