A track compiled from the sounds made during workshop I gave, with the fab Six Pillars residents exploring the far edges of software sound sculpting! 
With Sepehr Haghighi, Nasim Khorassani, Heckmat(t), Nemo Ghasemi, Niloufar Em and Yiorgis Sakellariou.
https://www.facebook.com/SixPillarsToPersia

Six Pillars

"Bifurcation of time" A text recorded on location at Keramikos Cemetery, Athens. Greece. Loosely Inspired by Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room". Created as part of the "Soundscapes Landscapes" Residency Athens (Greece).

More details:
http://irisgarrelfs.com/bifurcation-of-time
irisgarrelfs.com/soundscapes-landscapes-athens

Bifurcation Of Time

Infinity Kisses 23 responds to Carolee Schneeman´s work of (almost) the same title, re-imagining the act of kissing that is presented in the original, though sound.

Cats were of importance to the renowned performance artist Carole Schneeman throughout  her life, as was her own body. It was therefore no surprise to me that Schneeman would engage in bodily interspecies intimacy, which the original Infinity Kisses series documents through photography. On the other hand though, for me it raised questions around what intimacy with animal companions actually is, and where it moves into zoosex with its inherent power issues. I was also thinking about the avalanche of cat images and cat videos I have watched on social media, where animals are made to imitate humans for our amusement.

The structure of the piece is part experiential – emerging from listening to the materials, part conceptual. One of Schneeman´s Infinty works, Infinity Kisses II (1990-98) was recorded over an eight-year period, and Infinity Kisses (23) compresses this into 8 days. The original  35mm photographs where made in the process of kissing, essentially early selfies with uncontrolled light and focus and an aspect of improvisation (1). My kissing and cat sounds were recorded in my bedroom, with the windows open, equally improvised, uncontrolled and created haphazardly. In the second part of the piece I work these recordings into more of a dreamy state – Scheeman believed that one of cats communicated from the afterlife (2).

“I position the interspecies kiss, indeed the kiss in general, as performative” (3) declared Lynn Turner who researches how animal and sexual differences matter in visual and aural culture. In Infinity Kisses (23) I inhabit and perform both the role of human and cat for your amusement, but also your thoughtfulness, contemplating the amazing work of Carolee Schneeman and her humanity these embody.

The piece was created for the exhibition Carolee Schneemann’s Cats by the collective Cats Like Plain Crisps, at Blindside, Melbourne, Australia from 8 Nov–2 Dec 2023. It was accompanied by a live performance in which Iris performed a duo with herself, via a turntable and dubplates.

1) Mantle, Jac (2012). Carolee Schneemann: Carnal Visionary (online). Available from https://www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/edinburgh-festivals/art/carolee-schneemann-carnal-visionary
2) Thackara, Tess (2018). Carolee Schneeman´s lifelong love affair wit her cats (Online), Available from https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-carolee-schneemanns-lifelong-love-affair-cats
3) Turner, Lynn (2010). When Species Kiss: some recent correspondence between animots. In: Humanimalia – a journal of human/animal interface studies, 2(1), pp. 60-85.

find out more: irisgarrelfs.com/infinity-kisses-23

Infinity Kisses 23

This is a demo for Embodied Dialogues, a collaboration-in-progress between Jenn Kirby and Iris Garrelfs, that merges body movement, wearable technology, and extended vocal improvisation. The performance features Kirby’s Sensor Dress, a wearable instrument that generates sound through the performer’s movement, and Garrelfs' unamplified voice. Sensor Dress is equipped with capacitive touch sensors and motion tracking, enabling real-time interaction between body, dress, and sound. As Garrelfs moves among the audience, her vocalizations activate the dress's sensors, triggering an array of pre-recorded sounds—ranging from electroacoustic and body-sourced sounds to environmental recordings—while her voice remains unprocessed. The performance creates an intimate and immersive dialogue between performer, audience, body, and space. The integration of wearables, voice, and motion highlights the tactile, organic aspects of sound-making and draws on unpredictability in live improvisation. The work challenges traditional notions of control and controllers in performance, inviting both performer and audience into an ephemeral, postdigital experience. By exploring the intersection of digital musical instruments, human-computer interaction, and embodied expression, Embodied Dialogues offers new insights into how wearables can expand the possibilities of improvised performance, emphasizing the agency of the performer and the fluidity of interaction between body, technology, space and sound.

Embodied Dialogues

Embodied Dialogues is a collaboration between Jenn Kirby and Iris Garrelfs that explores the intersection of site-specificity, wearable technology and extended vocal improvisation, using Kirby’s Sensor Dress—a motion- and touch-sensitive wearable instrument—as a platform for sonic interaction. 
The performance activates site-specific sounds stored in the dress through movement, amplifying them with a hand-held speaker. A dialogue emerges between recorded sounds, unamplified voice, and space, creating an intimate, spatially aware experience that  foregrounds the agency of both performer and technology. Thus, the piece contributes to broader conversations around postdigital aesthetics, gendered technology, and digital musical instruments (DMIs). 

The performance at V&A East Storehouse marks the premiere of the project and incorporates sounds drawn from and around the museum’s collection. Iris will begin on the ground floor of the central Weston Collections Hall, gradually moving through the upper two levels before returning to the ground floor. Each floor features distinct sonic materials: on the ground floor, you will hear sounds captured from the materiality of the building itself; on the second floor, recordings derived from objects in the collection; on the third floor, sounds sourced from materials associated with the conservation of objects; and a mix back on the ground floor. The vocal elements weave between abstraction and articulation, responding both sonically and verbally to the exhibition and collection notes.

Embodied Dialogues - V&A rehearsal extract

Iris Garrelfs live at Sonic Imperfections. From "Breathing Through Wires" on Pan Y Rosas Discos.

Iris Garrelfs live at Sonic Imperfections

Recording from the sounding of objects made for a forthcoming collaborative installation by iris Garrelfs and Ingibjörg Gudmundsdottir  for the Brighton Digital Festival. Part of the Landscape : Islands residency at Phoenix Brighton 
http://irisgarrelfs.com/landscape-islands-residency

Landscape : Islands 1

Landscape : Islands 2

Landscape : Islands 3

Landscape : Islands 4

Recording from the sounding of objects made for a forthcoming collaborative installation by iris Garrelfs and Ingibjörg Gudmundsdottir for the Brighton Digital Festival. Part of the Landscape : Islands residency at Phoenix Brighton.
http://irisgarrelfs.com/landscape-islands-residency

Landscape : Islands 5

Performance for anglepoise lamps by Lab of Sonic Possibilities Lab (Iris Garrelfs and Tansy Spinks)at V22 Summerclub 2016, curated by SoundFjord.

Lab of Sonic Possibilities - Anglepoise Lamps

"Bifurcation of time" A text recorded on location at Keramikos Cemetery, Athens. Greece. Loosely Inspired by Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room". Created as part of the "Soundscapes Landscapes" Residency Athens (Greece.

More details: http://irisgarrelfs.com/soundscapes-landscapes-athens

Bifurcation of Time

Bifurcation of time

Duet with a street dog, recorded in Athens, Greece

Iris Garrelfs

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