Participants | Dom Bouffard, Alli Macinnes, Lewis Amar, Lia Mice
Based on a concept of ‘fractured punk’, Vengeful Ghost is an immersive new work for electric guitars. Intersecting performance, installation and sound sculpture, the work uses prepared instruments and extended playing techniques in a large-scale surround sound format. The effect is visceral and unstable, focusing on texture, dynamics and energy, honouring the electric guitar’s unique outlaw status and mythology, while seeking new shapes.
In Vengeful Ghost, Dom and collaborators explore a concept of Fractured Punk, harnessing punk’s sound and energy, while reforming it in dismantled, angular and abstracted ways.
Dom is interested in the electric guitar’s connections with auto-didacticism, agency and DIY. Vengeful Ghost draws on the outlaw status and heritage of the electric guitar, using the instrument’s history and symbolism to influence and push the limits of its sonic possibilities. Vengeful Ghost isn’t a fixed piece, it is conceptualised as more of an approach which can be placed within and respond to different environments. The performance possibilities within this conceptualisation of Vengeful Ghost as an approach are vast and incredibly exciting.
During Residency time, Dom explored the spatialisation and sound design elements to Vengeful Ghost, utilising computer programming and ambisonic recordings to distribute sound creatively. Working with a visual artist the group conceived different spatialisation elements within the work and experimented with creative presentation.
Dom is a London-born composer, sound artist and performer. His work includes concert music, installation, sound sculpture, computer and generative music, radiokunst, theatre and contemporary dance. From roots in rock bands Sona Fariq and Queen Adreena, he has collaborated with artists including Rufus Wainwright, Coco Rosie, Lou Reed, Budgie and Daniel Hope. His music has been performed by major interpreters including Sergio Sorrentino and Ludi Quartet Kernow and his radio work ‘WW1’ was shortlisted for the Kriegsblinden and Karl Sczuka Prizes, while ‘Tower of Babel’ a collaboration with Robert Wilson and Hal Willner, won the Deutscher Hörspielpreis der ARD in 2017. Pop Matters have called him ‘a composer of combustible aggression & intense, mathematical precision’ and Robert Wilson ‘one of the most interesting musical talents we have today’.
