HIBIKI ソノリティ」'
Solo performance for voice, electronics, live-generated visuals, and multichannel audio.
Voice, sound processing, visual projections, and physical materials/stage wear form a single interdependent ecology. The stage acts as a living organism—breathing, responding, and continuously reshaped by vocal gestures.
This work manifests itself through several outlets: audiovisual concert-installation performances, a series of workshops, and ongoing development.
A Living, Transformable Setup
Performances vary from traditional stage format or expand into a site-specific, total installation that responds to the architecture, acoustics, and material conditions of each location. The setup is modular and adaptable in the room from bigger stages / black box to more experimental set- ups.
Conceptual framework and background
HIBIKI is a multiplatform project initiated by composer and vocalist Johanna Sulkunen.
Inspired by the Kiki–Bouba phenomenon—a simple association between certain shapes and speech sounds—the project explores how perception often precedes cognitive understanding. The phenomenon appears to be universal, suggesting that humans intuitively connect sonic and sensory qualities across languages and cultures.
The work centers on a sonic pseudo-language built from the phonetic elements of speech—pitch, rhythm, microtextures, intonation, syllables, and phonemes—combined with lived, embodied experience: perception, synesthesia, resonance, and physical presence.
Crossing cultural and artistic domains
'Sonic Diplomacy' tour in Japan in November 2025
The core of the project – voice and language – is an everyday tool for most people. Through a familiar yet odd setup, we invite people to interact, to contribute, and question what language and voice can do.
How our interrelatedness operates across many layers simultaneously, while language remains the dominant tool for communication. Language, in this case, an artificially created pseudolanguage, is seen as a bodily experience before it holds semantic or conceptual meaning, and becomes a shared playground.
Transforming language into music, Hibiki fuses the unique qualities of Japanese and Danish, turning phonetic transcription into a poetic tool. The compositions, their visual interpretations, and translations to other physical and digital domains create a multimodal experience.
The development of the work has been gradual through recidencies ( Kulturværftet Helsingør) research, composing work, and culminated as a 'Sonic Diplomacy' tour in Japan 2025 that was initiated by the Royal Danish Embassy in Tokyo.
Supported by: Slots of Kulturstyrelsen, Jazz Denmark, The Royal Danish Embassy in Japan, Toyota Fonden, Sasakawa Fonden, Komponistforeningen.