THE PELS ORGAN AND HEMONY CARILLON OF ST. CATHERINE’S CHURCH IN HOOGSTRATEN by MIAUX/LIEVEN MARTENS

Cassette!
(Listen to the full thing: https://edicoescn.bandcamp.com/album/the-pels-organ-and-hemony-carillon-...)

These are recordings from the unveiling of Katharina AW, a relational artwork by Joris Martens. The unveiling took place at St. Catharine’s Church, Hoogstraten. While beholding the work, a woven tapestry, you listen to organ music by Miaux. Upon leaving the church, you receive a participation print. And you drink beer outside a local bar, where you hear the carillon gurgle with music by Lieven Martens and town carilloneur Luc Dockx.

Joris Martens' tapestry connects us to the cultural legacy of the past and to our own personal stories. In the work there's a tension between tradition and queer/the ‘strange’. Today it serves as a conversation piece (a conversation starter) in the conference room of Hoogstraten’s Town Hall, so that during a meeting with this or that real estate developer, for instance, questions can pile up in the heads present. Questions that go beyond profit maximization, labor cuts, and ever-poorer architecture.

Miaux plays her own compositions on the church organ. The songs appear on the albums Black Space White Cloud, Hideaway, Dive and Gigi, and are originally written for electronic keyboard. Mia demonstrates that the church organ, which is normally used as an underscore for sadness or compelling thoughts, is a fitting instrument for her playful art. Her performance breaks with the hermetic tradition of the church organ as a religious toolbox.

Lieven Martens proposed sketches for the carillon by loading bird sounds into the computer program Melodyne, varying them and converting them to musical notes. These trifles are translated on the carillon by town carillonneur Luc Dockx. The music sways into and out of focus. In this way, Lieven creates a dreamscape and breaks with the dreary carillon as an instrument of power.
credits