Bread Symphony | Katya Rozanova and Max Horwich

Bread Symphony is a four part experiment in which we capture the movements of our bodies as we prepare and knead bread as well as the movement of the bread during its fermentation, rising, and consumption phases. Translating movement or hands and or the bread (using sensors to measure the off-gassing and rising, and finally cutting and tearing of the crust) into sound through Max/MSP will result in a four part symphony.

• Part 1. Fermentation. (Bread movement)
• Part 2. Kneading. Shaping. (Movement of our bodies and bread)
• Part 3. Baking the bread. (Temperature and sound)
• Part 4. Tearing of the crust. (Movement of our hands and of the sound of the bread).

We aim to document and make audible the lifecycle of the organisms that ferment bread as we accompany these organisms in unison. In this way the symphony becomes an artifact of a cross-species collaboration. We are drawn to bread-making as it is a form of engaging other species dialogically. It requires observing and responding to yeast activity. Tending to and “listening” to the yeast is necessary in order for a nourishing (materially , sonically, socially, spiritually) results to happen for all parties. The resulting breads will be documented, delighted in, eaten, and certainly shared with communities we are a part of. Specifically we hope to share the bread with Community Solidarity who give out boxes of groceries at Herbert Von King (Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NY) park every Saturday at 3pm.

Collective bread-making is a practice that requires cooperating with human and nonhuman systems, to look outside of one’s singular capabilities and embrace collective thinking, research, and action. In the spirit of SloMoCo we are interested in abstracting movement of our bodies and the activity of nonhuman actors we collaborate with and frame this relation of collectivity by making it audible in one sonic composition. The partial absence of our own agency/authorship replaced by input from nonhuman elements guides conversations and creates opportunities for others to reimagine relationalities. This work also challenges our conventional ways of knowing - knowing process, creation, consumption, seen and unseen collaborators, while centering some of our earliest forms of storytelling and communication, sound and nourishment.