Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe - Nsenene / Grasshopper Republic

Film with Live Score / Music Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe weaves together voice and modular synthesis for Nsenene, a live interpretation of the score to the film Grasshopper Republic. Filmed over three years in Uganda and directed by Daniel McCabe, this documentary follows a team of grasshopper trappers as they try ‘to catch the swarm.’ Lowe’s live score—shifting between falsetto incantations, resonant horns, and trembling electronics—creates a charged sonic ecosystem where sound mirrors survival and the precarious interdependence between humans and the natural world. This live performance is the furthering of the Grasshopper Republic film collaboration between Lowe and McCabe. Unused footage and stems from the film’s score manifest as an A/V performance conceptualized by Lowe in which he investigates the elements of the score to create a new landscape. Part science fiction, part documentary and comprehensively filmed over, Grasshopper Republic follows a local grasshopper trapping team, in verité style, as these modern-day prospectors push into remote forests and villages seeking their fortune by capturing this elusive prey by the barrel load. In deliberate contrast to this dystopian imposition, specialized macro cameras simultaneously transport the audience into an immersive natural world on a level with the perspective of the Grasshoppers. This film is an immersive exploration of this strange, beautiful, and dangerous predicament which examines the balance between communities and ecosystems.