History Yokomono Pro

Yokomono-Pro

Yokomono-Pro is a car horn concert performed by vehicles moving through a city. The project was developed and written as a commission by the International Sonic Residency 2008 for The KHOJ Artists’ Association in New Delhi and was presented one year later at the India Art Summit. We arranged for the collaboration of thirty so-called ‘tuck tuck’ taxis and operated their horns via remote by means of transmitters. By playing this ‘taxi horn choir’ in combination with spatial manoeuvres an urban sound choreography was created. Yokomono-pro has also been performed at the Transmediale in Berlin and at TodaysArt in The Hague.

Yokomono-Pro can be thought of as a ‘car orchestra’ with the car horn as its instrument, or as a ‘John Cage happening’, as a choreography or refined celebration of a football victory or a marriage. And it is all that, but then again it's not that simple. It involves movement and sound in the public space and that makes it different, in many ways, from a traditional performance with static instruments in a closed environment. Also, the car is a ‘charged’
object, occupying an important economic and social position, while evoking varying associations and emotions. As an urban composer the challenge for me is to redefine this dominant element in our surroundings and find structure and harmony for it.

Future plans
This concerns the social nature of the car in our society. After Berlin, Ghent has the second-largest Turkish community outside of Turkey itself and traditionally they celebrate marriages by forming a procession of cars that sound their horns. In Western cultures as well music forms an integral part of marriage ceremonies.
Under the guidance of the timelab organisation and in collaboration with the Turkish community of Ghent – politicians, a youth organisation and musical Turkish families – we will expand and harmonise this Turkish horn sounding tradition with our technology. Our compositions will incorporate traditional Turkish rhythm patterns as well as modern techno, as both are part of this second generation of young Turks’ culture. We want to write several compositions together with Turkish musicians and together with car companies and young people build the technique, which will then stay in Ghent. Instead of realising a unique, one-time project here, we want to leave behind a permanent change in an existing tradition.

Plan Requiem /
The funeral procession is a special tradition, also now that cars are used, and used to be accompanied by music before it was transformed into a mostly sterile and formal occasion.
I intend to extend the present tradition of the funeral procession with a car requiem. I realise that this is a sensitive and very personal issue, and therefore I have decided to literally keep it personal: together with my brother, the visual artist Erik Hobijn with whom I also did Station to Station, I will write a requiem for my father, who is still alive. The requiem will consist of two parts. The journey to the cemetery consists of slowly building layers of long notes and a line of cars snaking through the city. The journey back is in strong contrast with this and is short and happy. Celebrations are in order.