MAS(S) is a new work by artists Tristan Shorr and Rae Champion (CONCRETE) and created in collaboration with artist Lomond Campbell.
MAS(S) is a sound art project exploring migration, refugees, war and loss through the human voice.
MAS(S) is an acronym taken from the works orginal title Make A Stand. MAS(S) represents an uprising of people, voices, protests, and the power of song in the form of a choral mass
A series of specifically designed generative sound sculptures guided by software and machines will turn the audio testimonies of refugees into an immersive sound experience, culminating in a Voice Siren Walk that will call out along the British coastline, allowing audiences to actively walk the siren call together, mapping our borders.
"the effects that noise possesses and passes to its subjects alter their perceptions, leave them differently and move them to action.."
The sounds and resulting score created by the generative sound sculptures transfers to a series of loudspeakers which run along a one hour coastal route. These speakers call out across the sea and participants/ audiences are invited to walk the siren border together.
There are two parts to the work, the inside sound sculpture(s) which generates a 45 minute soundscsape culminating in a voice siren sound, and the external loudspeakers marking a coastal border which takes this unique sound and pulses it along a section of UK coastline.
Audiences can attend both parts of the work or just one. The inside sound sculpture allows audiences to sit or stand watching the sculptures movements and generative sonic creation, listening to the soundscape as it develops.
The Voice Siren Walk will start at a specific time once a day where audiences/ participants will actively engage in a guided communal walk between the siren calls, mapping and collectively allowing the powerful sonic capabilities of these voices to empower those experiencing the work.
“..to be subjected to noise, made to listen, is to be controlled by a force that diminishes and impedes us from inside..
The act of producing noise, which you (and others) are then subjected to, is empowering”
Steven Connor
In Ukraine the drone of sirens has become a continuous soundtrack. Each siren on average rings out for one hour per day.
“After a year of war, air raid sirens have sounded more than 15,000 times in Ukraine”.
The air raid siren is a sound usually denoting fear, panic and action in the listener, a sound that often becomes an eternal alarm in war torn countries.
The siren in its usual form is a mechanical alarm and triggers fear in those who hear it. In countries at war this siren becomes the soundtrack to daily survival. Our voice siren takes power back into the hands of those who have lost power and autonomy, having been silenced and forced to flee. In creating a siren sound from the artists voices the power and fear are taken back by the people and the noise becomes a communal outcry and human call. The words from the testimonies are finally freed into the air in the form of a voice siren that rings out along a coastal route, pulsing the call from speaker to speaker.
Konstiantyu Tereschenko
In 2022 we worked alongside wonderful Ukrainian artists in the far north of Sweden who had recently fled the war in Ukraine.
These artists shared with us both their art and their recent personal experiences of the war in their homeland. It was incredibly humbling to spend time with each artist and their familes, to listen to their stories of the homes, lives and families they had to leave behind. We are very conscious in this work to make sure we give justice and find a way to echo their voiced experiences into a sound installation that respects their stories and resonates with audiences.
Pulling on the religious iconography we have seen repeated through the work and testimonies of our Ukrainian friends, our work has led us to examine not only MAS as 'Make A Stand', our original title, but to look at the MAS(S) as a word that encompasses a reflection on how we interact with the works themes as they develop.
For us MASS denotes the joining of the people into a group, the crowd, and the build up of voices together. It also suggests a religious MASS, the musical setting for solemnity and song.
The Ukrainian artists involved in this project are:
Alexandra Paranchenko
Mykyta Belousov
Kateryna Seheda
Kostiantyu Tereschenko
Liubov Babichenko
Olga Yurasova
Svitlana Scherban
Vitalina Maslova
"The very form of sound itself can be disruptive since it can transgress borders, barricades and blockades"
Christopher Cox
Liubov Babichenko
Developed over the past three years, the work includes at its essence the raw testimonies of refugees.
Honouring their stories, the recorded words are integrated into a series of generative sound sculptures that create a powerful interpretation of the original text, where the call and vibration of vocal frequencies and words form a sonic narration and energy.
Audiences are invited to move through and around the machines carefully, to stand still and observe, to stay awhile and listen, as the machines weave, distort, pull and compose the voices into uncomfortable, beautiful and alarming rhythms and sonic shapes. A powerful interpretation of the original text, the work culminates in a single siren sound, which will resonate both in the gallery and along the sea for the Siren Walk, which sends the voice siren sound into the air mapping the border here in Great Yarmouth
MAS(S) Touring Dates 2025/ 2026
B-Side Festival @ The High Angle Battery, Portland – 11th - 14th September 2025
Platforma Festival @ PrimeYarc Gallery / Pleasure Beach, Great Yarmouth – 17th-26th October 2025
Art Gene Gallery, Barrow-In-Furnace – 20th-29th March 2026
We would like to give a huge thanks to all those have been involved so far and given their time and considerable energies to this project.
Special thanks to Arts Council England, B-Side Festival, Counterpoints Arts, Original Projects + PrimeYarc Space, Art-Gene, The Lengths, Arkade Gallery, Brighton Festival
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