TUNE. Nivhek. „Engine“ (live) mit einem Film von Takashi Makino

In the organizer's words:

TUNE presents Nivhek in December with an installation in the auditorium, an artist talk and two live performances. The performances will be accompanied by a film by Takashi Makino.

Liz Harris, who goes by both the name Nivhek and Grouper, begins her performances with small sounds that expand into ever-expanding spaces, taking on a strange character that is both unsettling and transcendent. She debuted with the Nivhek Project in 2019 with After Its Own Death / Walking In A Spiral Towards The House. The project is informed by a sojourn in the Arctic, where she experienced isolation in endless daylight, surrounded by abandoned buildings absorbed by nature itself.
Natural landscapes, especially water, hold special meaning for Harris. In Engine, however, it emanates from the sounds of engines, drag racing and passing trains. It's the sound of overconsumption of fossil fuels, overdriven engines blurring into organic rhythms, mimicking heartbeats and breaths.

From Dec. 3-19, Engine by Nivhek will be heard in the auditorium at Haus der Kunst. The piece lasts 19 minutes and includes train and car engine sounds from drag races at Portland International Raceway/North Portland Railway Track. Engine began within a decades-long obsession with engine sounds. The sound of excess, power, sex, destruction, capitalism, of oil becoming an air pollutant, of transformation, and of life. Guttural basses and revs are a mirror of organic rhythms - imitating heartbeat, breathing, rush of blood. A spiraling ode to symbiotic decay.

Engine was originally commissioned by Roya Amirsoleymani and Felisha Ledesma for Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (2023).