Biography
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Born
1974 (age 50)
Robert Curgenven (1974) works with harmonics, textures and resonance as articulated not only through instruments/objects, in space and place, but also in time and the dislocation of the remote, exploring slowly shifting layers in the fabric of fields of perception. Creating vast landscapes from carefully detailed recordings through to immersive resonances via deft manipulations of sound pressure - described by one audience member as “like a punch in the face while elsewhere flowers bloomed.“
Although born in Sydney from 1999 he lived in Australia's Northern Territory, where for much of the ensuing nine years he worked in small towns and remote locations in health, radio and the arts as well as auspicing and directing Sounds Unusual - NT Festival for New Music. Since the beginning of 2008 he has relocated to Europe, based in Berlin and Milan.
Curgenven returned to performing live and improvised music in 2004 and has since played at events throughout Australia and Europe, including Transmediale (Berlin), Gallery for Contemporary Art (Leipzig), Headphone festival (Stralsund), C/O Pop (Koln), Alice Springs Desert Festival, Darwin Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Electrofringe Festival (Newcastle), Tura New Music Festival (Perth). He has toured Australia, Europe and Japan, including venues in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Brussels and Tokyo.
He has performed with many Australian and international artists including Jason Kahn (Sirr), Sumugan Sivanesan (Cronica Electronica), KK Null (Touch), Derek Holzer (Umatic), Luc Ex (ex-The Ex), Für Diesen Abend, Jörg Maria Zeger, Katrin Bethge and Lousie Curham (projections).. He has supported artists such as Jazkamer, Rafael Toral, KTL (Rehberg/O'Malley), Robin Fox, Richard Chartier and Marko Ciciliani. In addition he has exhibited in Darwin, Sydney, Berlin, Koln, Joachimstal and Fremantle.
“…A gentle audio suspension of time. This is the kind of subtlety that really works, becoming an almost total transference of realities.”
– Furthernoise (UK), 2006
“Curgenven makes the point that sounds are fundamental to our perception of the world and significant to notions of the familiar and our sensing of otherness. … The complex micro and meso-structure of these field recordings … included familiar sounds … as well as more all-encompassing sound events evoking specific places.… Our ability to completely hear the complexities of a place and time is intersected by memories of the familiar which are in turn displaced and transformed.”
– Realtime (AUS), “surrealestate” concert review, 2007
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