Ready to have your ears completely rewired?
Tilman Robinson’s world premiere performance The Quieter You Become lands at The Substation this October.
This isn’t your typical sit-back-and-listen gig. Robinson has created an electro-acoustic sound performance that plunges audiences into a forest of speakers, exploring how we hear through first, second and third-person perspectives. The Quieter You Become was developed alongside musicians experiencing hearing conditions, creating an intimate sonic environment where listening becomes both shared and estranged.
The Quieter You Become
- 15 October to 18 October
- The Substation, Newport
- 7.30pm nightly
- Haptic vests available: 16 October
- Post-show Q&A: 17 October
- Part of Melbourne Fringe’s Pulse program
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The performance blends acoustic and electronic sound with spatialised audio and sculptural design. Robinson questions whether we can truly trust our own senses, examining the difference between hearing and listening, and how experiencing sound through another person’s ears might tune us into the world differently.
Robinson brings serious credentials to this exploration of auditory perception. The composer, producer and sound designer has released three solo albums including Culturecide via Iceland’s Bedroom Community, Deer Heart and debut Network of Lines. He’s collaborated with Luke Howard, Peter Zummo and KCIN, while working extensively across dance, theatre, experimental music, installations, films and television.
His diverse output spans drone heavy ambient meditations to pointillistic flurries of electronically altered acoustic sound and rich immersive field recordings. The artist incorporates acousmatics and psychoacoustic principles into maximalist electro-acoustic compositions that draw from an impressively wide range of genres.
The accolades keep rolling in too. Robinson has secured major commissions from Australian Art Orchestra, Speak Percussion, Arts Centre Melbourne, Perth International Arts Festival and APRA. He’s been nominated for numerous arts prizes and twice made finalist for the Melbourne Prize for Music. His performance CV spans festivals from Dark MOFO and MONA FOMA locally to Ruhrtriennale, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Berlin Jazz Festival internationally.
The artistic team includes dramaturg Roslyn Oades, audio systems designer Bob Jarvis, and audiologist Siobhan McGinnity as hearing and access consultant. Haptic vests will be available for the 16 October performance, adding another sensory layer to the experience.
For more information, head here.
