NUM
interdisciplinary duo, focusing on sound art, audio visual performance, and sound design, consisting of Maryam Sirvan and Milad Bagheri, founded in 2010 in northern Iran.
NUM: Selected Sonic Arts & Sound Design Projects
1- I Am Walking in the Woods of Magic
This sound art piece received the Jury Award at the Visue Rural Sound Art Competition organized by Binaural/Nodar in Portugal (2016), and was released by the Berlin-based record label Syrphe Records (2018).
It is a storytelling electroacoustic composition for field recordings, voice, flute, and historical recordings of the rural crying of the Talysh people. The Talysh are an Iranian ethnic group indigenous to a region shared between Azerbaijan and Iran, spanning the South Caucasus and the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea.
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The piece tells the story of a woman who walks into a forest and finds herself lost in her head and thoughts.
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PLEASE LISTEN WITH WELL-LOCATED SPEAKERS OR HEADPHONES
2- SHED| knowing each other as different and the same
Featuring a collection of time-based moving portraits, SHED holds space for the multiplicity and humanity of bodies of culture. This collection of choreographies includes a duet and five solo portraits in which NUM created sound compositions for three solo pieces. The audio excerpt included here, is from one of the solo pieces by Mpoe Mogale. The piece is an inner journey in search of self-acceptance and inner peace. We used historical records from apartheid protests in South Africa (where the performer’s roots are from) to make a sonic image of the performer’s mind while she is in a constant struggle with her race and identity. SHED premiered in Calgary earlier this year, and was staged in Edmonton, and Vancouver in 2022.
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PLEASE LISTEN WITH WELL-LOCATED SPEAKERS OR HEADPHONES
3- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an immersive drama experience adapted from the fourteenth century Arthurian poem for which NUM did the sound design. The drama premiered earlier this year at the Alchemy Festival (U of C). The piece that we are including here is the third scene from the podcast version of the play. It can be a good example of how narration can be employed in a sound art piece.
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PLEASE LISTEN ONLY WITH HEADPHONES (BINUARAL AUDIO)