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“In her work, liquid epistemologies come to life with a renewed focus on non-linear, fluid and divergent temporalities and their conceptual capacity for transformative change. “ – Xenia Benivolski

“Her light touch, calm focus, devotion to chance, and reverently ceremonial performances makes it seem like these curious and magical sounds have always existed (just outside our threshold of hearing) and were patiently waiting millennia for an especially sensitive channeler to turn up and finally bring them to our attention.  In some ways that is true, but there is also a great deal of intelligence and ego-less artistry in how they are harnessed and presented here. …. Musique Hydromantique is a work very much in the tradition of visionary folks like Alvin Lucier and La Monte Young: it is an album that only Sauvage could have made and it is hard to imagine anyone else taking this direction any further, yet this simple, pure, and meditative work is a beguiling self-contained world that reveals a wealth of intriguing new possibilities.” – Anthony D’Amico – Brainwashed

“The wobbly, chiming vessels turn tuned water into a sort of natural synthesizer, complete with organic forms of envelope, modulation, pitchbend and decay. …. The result is soothing and sensual, like a long hot bath. I could soak in it forever.” by Momus, The WIRE

“Dispositif à fois virtuose et désarmant de simplicité, il a la beauté des choses élémentaires, des choses premières, et évoque une fascination quasi enfantine pour le son de l’eau sous toutes ses formes, la pluie, les vagues, le ressac… La musique qu’en tire Tomoko Sauvage, calme et méditative, appelant, sans jeu de mot, une forme d’immersion…. Il nous replonge dans des situations où notre perception du monde est modifiée, filtrée, par l’élément aquatique.” by Benoit Deuxant, La Sélec

“Tomoko Sauvage se lance dans l’exploration d’un espace sonore où la lenteur invite à l’écoute attentive, presque au recueillement. Son instrument, elle l’élabore elle-même, au fil des expériences. Elle fait vibrer l’eau (dans des bols en porcelaine) et l’air (jeu subtil autour des limites de l’accrochage Larsen).” RTBF

© Yoshihiro Inada

Tomoko Sauvage is a Paris-based Japanese composer and artist who is best known for her long-time musical and performance practice on her original instrumentarium assembling water, ceramics and electronics. She animates the inanimate through tuning water and vessels, making them vibrate and magnifying their tiny sounds that are otherwise quasi-inaudible. Her work centers on tactile materiality of vibrant objects, metaphorical listening and the use of the chance as a compositional method. For two decades, she has been performing internationally at institutions and festivals such as Barbican Centre (London), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Maerz Musik (Berlin), Musée d’art moderne (Paris), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Nyege Nyege Festival (Uganda) and Wonder Cabinet (Palestine). Her installation and video works have been shown at Sharjah Art Foundation, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.

WATERBOWLS

2006 – ongoing

Water, hydrophones, porcelain and glass bowls, stones, shells and electronics

Sauvage has developed her original musical instrument, Waterbowls, by initially drawing inspirations from the traditional South Indian instrument, Jaltarang. Her long-term experimentation, enlivened by a tactile research on properties of materials, transformed water-filled porcelain bowls into an aqueous electroacoustic instrument. She animates the inanimate through tuning water and vessels, making them vibrate and magnifying their tiny sounds that are otherwise quasi-inaudible. In her amplified waters, Sauvage plays with water drops and waves, clay, stones, shells and glass objects as idiophonic or membranophonic instruments and often in combination with bubbles that are used to create a kind of underwater aerophones. Sauvage’s active use of acoustic feedback, a phenomenon generally considered troublesome, has led her to engage in an encompassing approach to the architecture, the acoustic space and the presence of all matters within. Her role as a performer can be interpreted as a gardener who controls the controllable, leaving the chance to unfold the rest.

*Supported by La Pommerie/ CRAFT (creation of the porcelain bowls, Limousin, France) and Aquarian Audio (Hydrophones, USA)

_ story of waterbowls

Born and raised in Yokohama, Japan, Sauvage moved to Paris in 2003 after studying jazz piano in New York. Through listening to Alice Coltrane and Terry Riley, she became interested in Indian music and studied improvisation of Hindustani music. In 2006, she attended a concert of Aanayampatti Ganesan, a virtuoso of Jalatharangam – the traditional Carnatic music instrument with water-filled porcelain bowls. Fascinated by the simplicity of its device and sonority, Sauvage immediately started to hit China bowls with chopsticks in her kitchen. Soon her desire of immersing herself in the water engendered the idea of using an underwater microphone and led to the birth of the electro-aquatic instrument.