The Tamesis
official trailer nowthe new A24 movie starring Charli XCX, satirizes her version of boy Time, which was dropped earlier this month, has reignited interest in the musician’s breakthrough film career 100 nights heroic workA hilarious fairy tale screened at the latest Venice International Film Festival. In that film, the star played a striking instrument that may have caught the attention of sound art lovers: a sculptural harp created by artist Amanda Camenisch.
The London-based photographer, filmmaker and performer is perhaps best known for her sound sculptures – handcrafted, alien-looking music-makers that facilitate what she calls “participatory rituals.”
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Charli XCX performs a track titled Elemental Harp: Fireor “Fire Harp,” was commissioned by London’s Brent Biennale in 2022. The harp is one of five instruments that speaks to the elemental forces of earth, water, air, fire, and ether (the last of which is a colorless, highly flammable liquid that was once used to describe the upper reaches of the sky). Each piece is hand-carved by Camenisch.
for AirThe shape of the metal follows the shape of the body, gently arcing like a silver swan’s neck or a taut archer’s bow. fire harp Suitable for a mythological medieval background 100 nights Brilliantly. The strings are pulled across a flat surface. The pear-shaped body can be played with legs crossed or standing, like a pipa or loom.
“The pieces began as woven sculptural forms and evolved into sound healing instruments made by the women’s shelter at the Asian Women’s Resource Center,” Kamenish said art news. “Over the course of a year, these women learned to play them, becoming guardians and practitioners of these tools, providing each other with meditative sonic journeys.”
The sculptures appear in Kamenish’s 2023 exhibition at London’s Metropolitan Park, You Know How to Interpret the Look of the Sky, But Not the Ripples of Time, created in collaboration with Therese Westin as part of the Brent Biennale Community Commission. The pair invite visitors to play the sound sculptures, hoping to engage with the intersection of worship, nature and artistic creation. That’s where Ellen Amann Johns, the film’s assistant artistic director, discovered the harp.
“The series grew out of years of vibrational healing study and practice, exploring how sound resonates in the body and how specific frequencies affect physiological and energetic systems,” Kamenish said. During that time, she developed an alternative attunement system based on the Sephiroths of Kabbalah, the ten channels of Jewish mysticism through which transcendent forces meet and illuminate the physical realm. According to some literature, nature is one such structural force.
According to the artist, it’s fair to interpret these instruments as pipes, “mapping tonal relationships onto physical and symbolic correspondences.” “Each instrument is shaped to fit directly into the body, allowing the vibrations of the steel to be transmitted to specific areas to support activation, nourishment and recovery.
