Cabin Fever
Tate Modern Lates, 25 March 2022
TULCA Festival of Visual Art, 4-20 November 2022
Cabin Fever is a durational audiovisual artwork that explores vulnerability and dreaming. Composed for an ensemble of voices, domestic sounds and Zoom, this iteration of Cabin Fever features singers from ten countries as they document dreams and transform their screens into a mosaic of colour.
We hear new languages as the artwork leads us on a journey across the world visiting dreamers as they sleep. In this work the software itself becomes an active part of the ensemble as Cabin Fever explores the sonic potential of the virtual space, creatively playing with the latency and parameters of the technology. Singers’ voices hover at the edge of distortion, as familiar noises from our homes join in the performance. The unexpected is embraced—whose voice will Zoom choose to highlight, whose will be suppressed or fractured?
As the baton is passed between singers, new colours emerge as each person manually covers their home computer cameras with different everyday items to create a mosaic of colour. Each colour spectrum represents a different group of singers as each computer’s camera reacts to lighting states and also the materiality of the objects selected from each of the singers’ homes. Although we hear the singers’ voices, we never see them. We are kept suspended in a dream state, together but still apart. Each group of singers share one dream before the next group takes over.
Artistic Concept, Music and Libretto: Esmeralda Conde Ruiz
Performers: Renata Adamacova, Adel Alabd, Vicky Annand, Nicholas Balstone, Everton L de Barros, Ellen Bolger, Alison Buckley, Madeleine Buckley, Nick Buckley, Jane Bugnosen, Belinda Calaguas, Christiane, Claudia, Andrew Diamond, Belén Durán, Alison Furnham, Allan Gardam, Noriko Gregory, Jonathan Hammonds, William Hammonds, Harper, Paul Harrington-Moore, Simon Hearn, Jane Higginbottom, Jill Hummerstone, Denis Khomyshin, Candis Litsey, Janie Lucchese, Ciara McCarthy, Sarah Mercer, Alison Monaghan, Javier Navarro, James Naylor, Nina, Olivia, Perseus O’Brien, Erik Ostwald, Edenia Padayao, Averil Pooten Watan, Ruby, Vivienne Sayers, Ulrike Siemann, Patrick Trench, Mark Sapaen Watan.
Producer: Eira Szadurski
Film Editor: Sam Williams
Mastering: Marco Caricola
Visual Identity and Design: Nina Jua Klein Studios
Dreams and Libretto support from: UCL Lockdown Dreams: Jake Clwyd Roberts, Sleep and Dream Database: Kelly Bulkeley, Pandemic Dreams Archive: Fabiane M.Borges, Livia Diniz, Deidre Leigh Barrett, Syokay Mutonga, Levi Wataka, Amrita Ghosh, E Ensemble and the Cabin Fever Team.
With thanks to: Chloë Richardson, Karen Sutton, Prof Gunter Berger, Maria Judge, Andy Ingamells, Klara Schneider, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Anne Tallentire, William Hammonds, Susie and Jonathan Hammonds, Anne Tanaka, Barbara Morgenstern & Chor der Kulturen der Welt, Javier Ruiz & Avoces Choir, James Naylor & Walthamstow Voices Community Choir, Levi Wataka, Jennifer Tham, Yoshimi Gregory, Yasuno Miyauchi, Chizuru Matsumoto, Jono Palmer, Oliver Warren, Nina Jua Klein, Simon Wilson, Angharad Cooper, Alison Furnham, Sarah Richards, Elaine Gibson-Bolton, Andre Cobb, Edward Smith, Claudia Kramer, Hannah Maley, Ilka Handreg, Kristina Kramer, Linus Bickmann, Georgina Riel-Waabishki Mukwa Kwe, Vasiliy Knyazev and the Kamchatka Philharmonic Choir, Pedro Portellano, Gonzalo de Pedro Amatria, Natalia Salazar & the RAYO team, Adrienne Wong, Michael Wheeler, Margaret Evans and & the FOLDA team, Liat Rosenthal, Jessye Bloomfield, Pete Triggs & the Tate Modern Team, David Finn, Clare Gormley & the TULCA Festival Team and everyone who shared dreams online.
Tate Modern Photography: Mischa Haller
TULCA Festival Photography: Ros Kavanagh