Songs To Dream
Visualization of the Performance by Kubra Uzun
Transpose BURN at Barbican’s Pit, London
-ongoing-
Visualization and Web Development: Merve Akdogan
Performance Artist: Kubra Uzun
Location: London, UK
Role: Visualization and mapping of physically collected songs and memories from the audience of Kubra Uzun
This project involves the visualization and mapping of Post-it cards provided by the audience who attended a performance at the Barbican Centre, led by Kubra Uzun—a revolutionary queer mother, performance artist, musician, trans activist, and more. During the performance, Kubra invited the audience to write down a song on a piece of paper. Subsequently, these song-filled pieces of paper were collected and handed over to me.
This archive was brought to life online with this web design where post-it cards came alive and told the story. Each Post-it card plays the initiated song when the user clicks on it. It is possible to navigate with arrows around the valley of sounds in the dreamscape.
From Kubra: Songs interact with us and with everything around us. Songs mostly remind us of memories with people we love, or lost..places we’ve been: sometimes the ‘14th birthday morning’.. -or that ‘rose we smell’. Songs empower us, give us the urge to continue to live! And best friends when we are, we feel or we choose to be lonely.
I asked the audience to remember/recall ‘those’ songs -the particular ones comes to mind at first with personal importance and memoirs- then to write them on the colourful blank papers in the Zines we handed over at Pit’s entrance with adding a few words regarding the importance of ‘those’ songs, and after to pin their filled ones on to the board hanging on the wall at foyer when they are out. Four days, lots of pinned papers of songs one after another: growing, getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger..
A big bunch of memories, a ‘living’ output curated by the audience itself. I collected every paper after, and created this ‘Songs to DREAM’ playlist on Spotify: curated by the audience and those who are deeply involved with Transpose BURN: Pit Party. This playlist is Monumental, because it is full of fire, love, joy, togetherness, tears, applause, abundance, laughs, memories, passion and hugs!
