Nottingham Contemporary

Empty Orchestra refers to the origins of the Japanese compound word ‘karaoke’: kara meaning "empty" and ōkesutora for "orchestra". In this work, Urok Shirhan stages a musical performance piece that concerns questions of nationality, synchronization and belonging.

The performance is part of Shirhan’s recent body of research that considers questions of the ‘voice’: the ways in which it is performed, recorded and made audible, as well as a wider understanding of the ‘tongue’ as relating to language, phonetics and dialects.

Underlying the work are notions of displacement and assimilation, understood here both in the sense of aesthetic form as well as geographic migration.

Produced by CENTRALE FIES within the program of LIVE WORKS PERFORMANCE ACT AWARD.