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Swarming Chants

 

Sound work with

2 stereo sound files played over 4 speakers

Duration 15 min.

 

 

 

Swarming Chants is based on sound recordings of various football fans from across Europe. The work explores how their chants spontaneously erupt during football matches and become a collective singing voice without a singular body or defined epicentre. Jan Adriaans connects these chants with the swarm intelligence observed in flocking birds or swarming fish, which involves an unconscious process whereby the individual action is subordinated  to the dynamic of a group.

 

The lyrics of football songs usually associate the fan’s group identity firmly with a specific geographic location, unifying its members against an opponent, defined as ‘the other’. However, the different chants in Adriaans’ composition blend into one another: the swarming voices switch language, national identity and location. These songs derive from folksongs, classical operatic repertoire, pop-tunes, hymns, military marches, nursery rhymes etc. By entirely separating these chants from the original singing bodies, Swarming Chants exposes the power of the collective voice by turning its swarm dynamics and affective impact into a unique sonic experience, which also evokes the peculiar vocal power of operatic choirs. - Kris Dittel

 

In the orientation of a pre-conceptual phase (feeling) turning into a conceptual phase, identity is build. Stigmergy; a spontaneous emergence of coherent activity leading to a group feeling, is dominant in this process. It’s a biological term for a form of self-organization. Because the situation of football fans in the street or in the stadium is agonistic, the identity of anyone outside of this group is also build from it, either as an opponent or as a complete outsider.

 

Thanks to:

 

Charly van Rest / Silent M Studio - post sound production, advice recording / installation

Alex in 't Veld - recording assistance

Rop van de Laar - programming

Piotr S. Guzek - translation

Cora Schmeiser - compositional advice

 

Feijenoord, Rotterdam

Stade Rennais F.C., Rennes

Lech Poznan, Poznan

 

 

photo: Alex In 't Veld

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