CORIN performs a sci-fi soundtrack for the present in a hybrid, world-building performance.

Inspired in part by the proliferation of online performance and digital avatars during and in the wake of the pandemic, multidisciplinary artist CORIN wants to blur the boundaries between the virtual and the physical within her audiovisual practice. With Lux Aeterna, a collaboration with Malaysian/Australian multimedia artist Tristan Jalleh, real-time footage of the artist is enhanced with visual effects, transfiguring an iteration of CORIN’s live AV show into a digital environment that draws from the sci-fi worlds of Dune and Raised by Wolves. “Usually, everything we do is about developing the environment, building something that is cohesive and detailed and would function on its own,” explains Jalleh. “But once we filmed, we realised that the performance had to be the main focus.” Combining CORIN’s exploratory approach to keys and a costume influenced by Filipino mythology, designed by Filipinx performance artist Justin Shoulder and Anthony Aitch, the artists expand the performance into its own instance of world-building.

“The main thing that stuck was the idea of a desert landscape – a futuristic world where machines are powered by the sun,” adds CORIN. “I was reading about ancient cultures that worshiped the sun and was interested to merge these ancient ideas with something futuristic. I was also researching the hydraulis – an early type of organ powered by water. Thinking about ancient musical instruments as spirits, sacred objects, extensions of our bodily existence, vessels or portals into another. How could we create an instrument that’s ancient and future at the same time – that was the core idea.” It’s this same urge that inspired CORIN to name her new album after 20th century composer György Ligeti’s choral piece, which was iconically used to give sound to the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Using granular synthesis to update Ligeti’s use of micropolyphony in the age of machine learning, CORIN seeks to write sci-fi soundtracks for the present by imagining “a semi-utopic vision of the future whereby the remaining infrastructure of the earth is powered purely by natural resources.”

Lux Aeterna is out now, on UIQ. You can find CORIN on Instagram.

Lux Aeterna Credits:

Creative Direction – Corin Ileto & Tristan Jalleh
Video Director & Visual FX – Tristan Jalleh
Cinematography – Goldie Soetianto
Camera & Lighting Assistant – Michael Thompson
Costume Design – Justin Shoulder & Willow Darling
Headdress Design – Anthony Aitch
Make Up and Hair – Mat Hornby
Rigging – Finton Mahoney 
Production & Props – Corin Ileto
Title Design – Wei Huang

Studio – Super Freak Media

Green screen footage filmed on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. 

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body

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