- Abstractive extensive studies
- Three situation studies
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Three measurement studies
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Greenwich House, 1957
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At every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself of the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so.
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Timecode studies
- Postproductions
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[number of performers-date-abbreviated venue name]
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Edgar Varèse and the Jazzmen
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Piano Reductions
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Luftlinien
Timecode studiesconcert video-interventions for two analog CCTV cameras
2022
2022
The work is based on an understanding of the classical concert as an apparatus whose functioning is based on a complex situation in which the attention of all participants is cast in various directions. During musical performances, members of the audience not only pay attention the musical actions performed on stage, but also everything else that constitutes the performers’ behaviour, who are in turn watching themselves in order to conform it to the situation. Conversely, the audience watches itself as individuals and as a group to avoid revealing their presence.
This complex of attention is reconfigured during the non-performance parts. The musicians watch themselves in order to withdraw from the center of focus and the observers in turn manifest themselves by enacting audience specific behaviours like applauding, exchanging or criticizing, which involves other kinds of attention.
Such a clear distinction between the social time of the audience and the musical time of the performance was not always the case and is therefore the product of a historical differentiation. More particularly, the idea of the public concert originates in the ideals of the Enlightenment and its emphasis on the individual. Music tends to no longer be just a part of institutional ceremonies under patronage, but also a transfer of meanings to a group of anonymous people, each one being considered equally capable of individual listening and interpretation.
From this comes that the musical rituals are progressively consolidated and that music manifests itself as autonomous "works" whose increasingly complex content requires a high degree of virtuosity for the performers and of attentiveness from the audience. This then leads to the rituals of the concert being consolidated to avoid the "disturbance" that everyday behaviours impose on a pure inner experience of the music. From this comes that the structuring principle of the modern concert ritual is a form of constant self-monitoring by all parties involved, which is very strongly felt by any outsider visiting a "classical" music concert. The idea of timecode, common in CCTV images, therefore refers both to the idea of the objective, shared time of the concert, and to the behavioural code it implies.
Timecode studies is a preparatory work for At every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself of the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so..
presentations:
14.12.2022 Gare du Nord, Basel / Ensemble Lemniscate
13.12.2022 Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich / Ensemble Lemniscate
12.12.2022 PROGR Aula, Bern / Ensemble Lemniscate