Canberra International Music Festival / Shock Lines, Niki Johnson. At Canberra Glassworks, until May 2. Reviewed by KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.

Immersion experiences are now part of the contemporary cultural landscape – widening our creative experience as they weave together both vision and sound.

Shock Lines brings together both innovative musical performance and the art of glassmaking in the creative environment of the Canberra Glassworks.

It is a collaboration between Caitlin Dubler, a glass artist and silversmith, her sister Natasha Dubler, a sound artist and cellist, and Niki Johnson a percussionist and composer/performer.

On arrival, we were issued with headphones and after a brief introduction by the three collaborators, the audience was invited to take a sound walk through the Glassworks, accompanied on the headphones by original created soundscapes from the Shock Line group’s experimental library as well as excerpts from other musicians and composers who make music in new and creative ways.

The sounds of the Glassworks, referencing its previous life as a busy industrial site and its now rebirth as a creative centre of glassmaking, is woven into the recording along with commentary on the possibilities of glass as a medium for sound from glass artist Kirstie Rea and musician Annear Lockwood.

Also, on display in the glass workshops were examples of the large flat plates of irregular glass forms that were made by Caitlin Dubler and used for her sound performance.

The use of glass to make music has a long history. Handmade glass flutes were made in Paris in the 19th century and the glass armonica used glass bowls struck or touched to make musical notes. Mozart even wrote music for it.

The second part of the performance took a more traditional form, with the audience seated in the Glassworks foyer.

Large scale designs of Caitlin Dubler’s glass sculptures were suspended from the ceiling while other pieces of the same kiln-formed glass, made she was a recent Canberra Glasswork artist-in-residence, provided the instruments.

These glass works had been formed in the kiln from liquid glass with the grains of Hawkesbury sandstone and its iron oxides providing its gritty surfaces and its soft rose colour.

In her percussion performance, Johnson almost caressed these glass forms as well as striking them dramatically to produce each note.

Together it was a complex and eloquent performance. The pitch and sound of each struck note was different but together they made up complex musical layers.

They ranged from a shuddering, long drawn crescendo of notes to delicate high-pitched notes that suggested the soft, barely heard movement of grasses. Contrasting short staccato sounds were made from rubbing pieces of grit and glass on the glass surfaces.

Natasha Dubler is the experimental sound artist who works with Johnson, co-composing the music and providing the vital electronic component of the performance. Her work brings colour and depth.

The performance provided a moving, sensory experience. I thought, if the earth could sing, this is the song it would sing.