Leena Ahmed and Ian Fletcher at Art Dubai

Here is the link to Leena and Ians audio participation in Art Dubai from 16th to 19th March 2011
http://theislandarts.org/exhibitions/menasa-studio-dispatches/leena-ahmed-and-ian-fletcher/


Leena Ahmed Born in Karachi, Pakistan, 1975. Lives and works in Karachi. BArch.Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Dec’ 2000. Madhyama Purna (Tabla) Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, New Delhi, 2006- 2008. Tabla.

Ian Fletcher is an electronic musician, DJ and Producer from the UK. The tracks N-Coach and Dub Coach have been mixed by him during the course of this Mauj residency for The Rising Tide exhibit.


"Saddar"---sonic art pieces within 'The City in Nature' project at the Rising Tide exhibit at the Mohatta Palace Museum , Karachi ---Leena Ahmed and Ian Fletcher, Manchester
These sonic art pieces , aim to celebrate both the urban and the rural/folk sounds that have become an integral part of our daily lives. Using the bus as the analogy for the City and the river as the analogy for Nature, some of these pieces explore how these two moving bodies move through their routes/courses. One picks up more people on its way and the other, water, in its flow.
When the bus conductor calls out his route, one discovers in it a loop of melody and rhythm. This soundscape is a unique feature found on our roads, an addition to the universal vehicular sounds. Since the written word is not understood by all, this oral tradition has developed into an innovative, popular genre of street sounds which could also be termed as 'popular-folk'.
All sounds and rhythms in the track W-21 are from the sound vocabulary of the road/bus/bus conductor, including the conductor's thumping at the back of the bus signalling to the driver.
Sometimes one even encounters a folk snake charmer, jogi, on the city road, taking one to the sounds of the beautiful ancient folk tradition of Sindh.
Such is the amalgam of the soundscapes enveloping us!

N Coach

The rhythms of the bus conductors’ chants immediately suggested these rhythms and bass lines. Editing and combining different chants and applying various effects such as filters and delays, the chants fuse with Broken Beats with Tabla and Latin Percussion.

Dub Coach
This piece combines the sounds of the city with different Bus Conductor chants. Dubstep and Ragga rhythms support the chants alongside a Deep Bass line. Various effects have been applied to the voices such as frequency shifting.