Music is, as Howard Becker (1989) so clearly describes, “what a lot of people have done jointly”(p. 282). In Halberstadt, however, this idea of music is set in future tense: Organ2/ASLSP is what a lot of people will do jointly. Becker might focus on music as a social process, Organ2/ASLSP in Halberstadt tests to what extent music can be a ‘planned’ social process. Instead of one performer, there are several interpreters: a board of three directors, a ‘Kuratorium’ (a board of trustees) consisting of people from Halberstadt, and a group of ‘artistic advisors’ among whom are several initiators of the project (Gastell 2015, Interview). Due to the length of the performance it will be necessary to have new people coming along and taking the lead of the project over. According to composer Jakob Ullman, this is actually one of the most important aspects of the whole project, because this way “a laboratory of human tradition can be created: a place where in an exemplary way human history is seen as an essential part of human existence”.
This analogy to the laboratory stuck with me, because what is going on in Halberstadt seems to have inherent experimental dimensions. Not only does this challenge the notion of the performer in music and the duration of a musical piece, it essentially questions the whole set of parameters music depends on: the role of time and space, the instrument, the listener, the role of the composer, everything has to be taken in consideration over and over again just to make sure that this 639-year-performance can exist. The interpretation of the score is discussed and questioned (Bossert 2015, Interview), the type of instrument has been changing and poses difficulties (Gastell 2015, Interview), and even the performance’s mere existence is everything but certain (Ericsson 2015, Interview). In a way, Organ2/ASLSP in Halberstadt functions as a “question-generating machine” as all it does is posing new questions for future generations (Rheinberger 1997, p. 32).
Historian of science Hans-Jörg Rheinberger called objects that function like question-generators ‘epistemic things’. These ungraspable entities are always part of ‘experimental systems’: material means that provide the right settings for questions to emerge (1997). Recently, several artistic research scholars have been trying to apply Rheinberger’s concepts to experimental artistic practices (Schwab 2013; Borgdorff 2012). In Halberstadt, there is a situation that can be marked ‘experimental’ by outsiders like myself, and there is obviously a situation going on that generates questions about music. The people involved in the project continuously have to deal with questions without having any concrete answers.
References
- Becker, H. (1989). Ethnomusicology and Sociology: A Letter to Charles Seeger. Ethnomusicology. 33(2), pp. 275-285.
- Borgdorff, A.H. (2012). The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research in Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
- Bossert, C. (07-05-2015). Interview with the author.
- Ericsson, H.O. (27-04-2015). Interview with the author.
- Gastell, K. (20-04-2015). Interview with the author.
- Knorr Cetina, K. (2000). Objectual Practice. In Schatzki, T., Knorr Cetina, K & Von Savigny, E. (eds.). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory.New York: Routledge.
- Rheinberger, H.J. (1997). Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Schwab, M. (2013). Experimental Systems: Future Knowledge in Artistic Research. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
