Saudade

About the work

Saudade brings moving image, suspended fabric, spatial sound, light and a live performer into a changing encounter with the forces of nature. Developed from the kinetic experiments of Willow, the work gives physical form to an absent wind and considers the vulnerability of a human body within a world it cannot fully control.

Five independently controlled motor modules animate hanging fabrics in response to field recordings of wind. The recordings are heard as traces of another place while also producing movement in the present. Across the space, projected images, light and the performer enter into shifting relationships with these materials. As a co-creator, Song participated in suspending the motor modules and in producing and operating their connections with the audiovisual elements.

Attention passes between a landscape retained in an image, fabric moving nearby and the presence of a living body. Their movements may coincide or pull apart, changing the sense of distance between recorded nature and the immediate environment. Viewers encounter these relationships from their own positions, turning towards different elements as the performance unfolds. Saudade extends Willow into a collaborative performance in which the force of an absent environment becomes a shared experience of movement, presence and instability.