The Ground Septet 

The Ground Septet is a new sound composition by Tarek Atoui. In this composition, Atoui explores principles of rotation and vibration, as well as the circulation of water, through seven instruments specifically created for The Ground: The Communicating Vases, The Duofluctus, The Pottery Wheel,The Rotary Plate, The Spin Collector, The Trichord and The Turntable Study. These instruments, arranged together in a specific order at Gathering Space, and set in motion by a computer program, create at the same time the composition and a listening space.

Created in 2023, The Ground Septet is a new development of The Ground, an ongoing project initiated by Tarek Atoui in 2011, that started with five years of research on practices of architecture, traditional music and agriculture in the Pearl River Delta in China. This knowledge inspired ideas on how to work with rhythm, improvisation and space, and was later combined with the experimentations of instrument-makers and musicians in the form of sound compositions that the audience can visit and listen to, as well as workshops and performances.

For The Ground Tarek Atoui built on the initial research to develop collaborations with instrument and ceramic makers, and musicians for the realization of new instruments that were first presented in the exhibitions The Reverse Collection at Tate Modern in London in 2016, and Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs at Para/Site in Hong Kong in 2017. A further phase of experimentation and performances followed at Mirrored Gardens in Guangzhou in 2017 and in the context of the exhibition The Ground: From the Land to the Sea, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2018. The composition The Ground was finalized in 2019 and presented as part of May You Live in Interesting Times at the 58th Venice Biennale. It has since been presented in the exhibitions Cycles in 11 at the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2020, and in Ouvertures at the Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce in Paris in 2021.

Tarek Atoui is a musician, composer and sound artist. He initiates multidisciplinary interventions, concerts, performances and workshops around the world. His projects are grounded in extensive research into the history of music and instrumentation, while also exploring new methods of composition. Over the past years, Atoui has researched the relationships between sound, vibrations, instruments and the body, starting with how sound is perceived in Deaf culture. He challenges, expands and revises our established and conventional ways of experiencing sound, while developing a permanent reflection on the concept of the instrument and the act of performance itself as a complex, open and dynamic process.

Over the past decade, he has undertaken a series of long-term research projects: WITHIN (2013-ongoing), The Reverse Collection (2014-2021), The Ground (2015-ongoing), The Rain (2019-ongoing), Waters’ Witness (2020-ongoing) and The Whisperers (2021-ongoing).