Of Hero<\/em>, a farcical fairy tale released at the latest Venice International Film Festival. In that film, the star plays a striking instrument that may have caught the eye of fans of sound art: a sculptural harp by the artist Amanda Camenisch.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tThe London-based photographer, filmmaker, and performer is perhaps best known for her sonic sculptures\u2014hand-forged, alien-looking music-makers that facilitate what she calls \u201cparticipatory rituals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe piece played by\u00a0Charli XCX is titled Elemental Harp: Fire<\/em>, or the \u201cFire Harp,\u201d and was commissioned by the London Brent Biennial in 2022. The harp is one of a family of five instruments in dialogue with the elemental forces\u2014earth, water, air, fire, and ether (the last is a colorless, highly flammable liquid once used to describe the upper reaches of the sky). Each piece is hand-sculpted by Camenisch. <\/p>\n\n\tFor Air<\/em>, the metal was shaped with the body\u2019s form in mind, gently arcing like a silver swan\u2019s neck or an archer\u2019s bow drawn taut. Fire Harp<\/em> suits the mythic-medieval setting of 100 Nights<\/em> well. The strings are drawn across the flat face. The pear-shaped body can be played astride one\u2019s lap or standing, like a lute or loom.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThese works began as woven sculptural forms and gradually evolved into sound-healing instruments made for the Asian Women\u2019s Resource Centre\u2019s women\u2019s shelter,\u201d Camenisch told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cOver the course of a year, the women learned to play them, becoming both guardians and practitioners of these tools, offering meditative sound journeys to one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tThe sculptures appeared in Camenisch\u2019s 2023 exhibition at the Metroland London, \u201cYou know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the ripples of the time,\u201d created in collaboration with Therese Westin as part of the Brent Biennial Community Commission. The pair invited visitors to play the sound sculptures, and hopefully tap into the weaving of worship, nature, and art-making. That\u2019s where Ellen Amann Johns, the assistant art director of the film, discovered the harps.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe series emerged from many years of research and practice in vibrational healing, exploring how sound resonates through the body and how particular frequencies affect physiological and energetic systems,\u201d Camenisch said. During that time, she developed an alternative tuning system based on the Kabbalistic sephiroth, the ten channels according to the Jewish mysticism through which transcendent forces meet and illuminate the physical realm. Nature is one such structural force, according to some literature.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s fair then to interpret these instruments as conduits, \u201cmapping tonal relationships onto physical and symbolic correspondences,\u201d per the artist. \u201cEach instrument is shaped to meet the body directly, allowing the vibration of the steel to travel into specific regions, supporting activation, nourishment, and restoration.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The official trailer for The Moment, the new A24 movie starring Charli XCX during a satirical version of her Brat era, dropped earlier this month, renewing interest in the musician\u2019s cinematic breakout in 100 Nights Of Hero, a farcical fairy tale released at the latest Venice International Film Festival. In that film, the star plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 11:19:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}