Get Lost with Oren Ambarchi And Crys Cole

CAMP is a residential arts facility in the French Pyrenees. It's a place where great art is made, new movements are formed, new ideas are explored and groundbreaking people are nurtured. CAMP is located in Aulus les Bains, the last village before the France/Spain Pyrenean frontier chain. The location is spectacular - we are nestled at 750m above sea level, surrounded by snowcapped peaks over 3000m high, ancient forests and cascading waterfalls. There are eagles, lammergeiers, vultures, ibex and bears. Walk out of the residency, and within ten minutes you are completely alone in one of the most beautiful mountain landscapes in Europe. Aulus les Bains is also a spa village - there are hot water springs, and a thermal spa in the village to take advantage of the healing and relaxing properties of the water.
    
Workshop dates: 16/08/2023 - 2023-08-21
    
Integrating the landscape, personal objects and actions, our bodies, our musical passions and interests, and our individual exploratory processes, this workshop is about foraging into your artistic practice, searching for triggers, ideas, inspiration, and development. Oren Ambarchi & Crys Cole - a true power duo of modern exploratory art and music -  will guide you in getting lost in your creative process, discovering parts of your work that you weren't expecting, surprising yourself and freeing your instincts. 

We'll engage in active sound/music exploration, listening, discussion and analysis, developing our listening practice as an active process of creativity. We'll explore new tools - from creative tricks and tactics to instruments and tools - and try out new instruments. We'll reflect on our own work (past, present and future possible), and ask the big questions: why, how, what am I trying to achieve? We'll explore collaboration as a way to push ourselves, reacting to fresh/different/surprising ideas and approaches.

At its core, this session is about getting lost in your creative process, reflecting on your own work, finding your own voice, diving intrepidly into the possibilities of your own creativity and developing your own identity as an artist.

Canadian sound artist Crys Cole works in composition, performance and sound installation. Taking a conceptual approach, she generates subtle and imperfect sounds through haptic gestures and seemingly mundane materials to create texturally nuanced works that continuously retune the ear. Crys has performed globally, and collaborators include James Rushford, Francis Plagne, Leif Elggren, Tetuzi Akiyama, Seiji Morimoto, Jessika Kenney, David Rosenboom, Annea Lockwood, Keith Rowe, Lance Austin Olsen, Jamie Drouin, Mathieu Ruhlmann, David Behrman, Tim Olive, Graham Lambkin and, of course, Oren. Her work has been published on Black Truffle, Penultimate Press, Students of Decay, Ultra Eczema, Boomkat, Second Editions, caduc, Bocian, Another Timbre and Infrequency Arts, with guest appearances on Touch and Editions Mego; she has been exhibited in Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the UK and Thailand.

Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended song forms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with a pure signal. Oren has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Charlemagne Palestine, Sunn 0)), Thomas Brinkmann, Crys Cole, Keiji Haino, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Curran, Loren Connors, Manuel Gottsching/Ash Ra, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Keith Rowe, David Rosenboom, Julia Reidy, Akio Suzuki, Phill Niblock, John Tilbury, Richard Pinhas, Evan Parker, Fire! and many more; he has released on Touch, Editions Mego, Drag City, PAN, Southern Lord, Kranky and Tzadik. His acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino and Jim O’Rourke performs in Tokyo annually with many of their concerts documented on Ambarchi’s Black Truffle label. Black Truffle has over 90 releases to date.

In 2003 Oren's live release Triste received an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica digital music category. His release Quixotism was listed in The Wire magazine’s top 50 releases of 2014 and that same year Pitchfork named him Experimental Artist Of The Year. His 2016 album Hubris featured an astonishing cast of players including Crys Cole, Mark Fell, Arto Lindsay, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Ricardo Villalobos amongst others. In May 2019 renowned London venue Cafe Oto celebrated Oren's 50th birthday (and the 10-year anniversary of his Black Truffle label) with a 3-day festival featuring a packed international bill of special guests, projects and collaborations, all closely associated with Oren and his label.