Concept: Project Untitled I a.o.i. - lasting memories
After finishing the exploration of artistic research a.o.i. - lasting memories, I will publish an edition of the notation within the exposition of a.o.i. - lasting memories for sharing with everyone to play for enjoyment. It is also possible to publish it digitally through Research catalogues.
The starting point of a.o.i. - lasting memories is from the Joint artistic research with the composer and Dr Valerio Sannicandro in 2021.
That is a part of the music score of his doctorate project at the TU-Berlin, which is the point of the conjunction in the context of a.o.i. - lasting memories. It addresses a dealing point of aesthetics and ethics between Western and Eastern, between spatialization and spatial aesthetics.
Valerio Sannicandro in his doctoral project at the TU Berlin dealt with Alvin Lucier's music ethics and aesthetics, which overlaps with my project "still/silent" (2010) with Chris Dahlgren. This addressed Japanese avant-garde, European avant-garde and American avant-garde in the context of fine arts and music. What is 'avant-garde' today, especially in the 21st century?
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Untitled I a.o.i. - lasting memories deals with a performance from the aspect of (interior-) architecture and visual arts on the subject of “spatiality”. Thereby, the visual codes (visual notation) will be transcribed, translated, and articulated into a space for creating an unconventional musical performance. It consists of interpretation and improvisation, which is a kind of intervention between music and visual arts in the context of (interior-) architecture.
Chris Dahlgren is co-composer for the music improvisation-based performance and instrumentalist in the project of Untitled I a.o.i. - lasting memories.
Graphic Notation a.o.i. - lasting memories:
The notation is possible to interpret. Thereby, how it will be interpreted and developed its own logic, is up to the player. However, there are some basic ideas.
An idea is for circularity and its musical forms.
In Western classic music, such as in Baroque, it was the bar (takt), metre (metrum), and repeatable rhythm. The phrases consist of them dynamically, was a beauty in the Western music. - Linearity and formalism in Western music and its beauty (Geometry, Symmetry and Harmony)
A great-known work on this subject of spatiality and circularity was „Ryoanji“ (1985) by John Cage, as well as his drawing and notation in the post-war, in the 20th century. – Phenomenology in contemporary classical music
It was classical music (in oder words, ancient music) met natural science methodically.
In the notation a.o.i. - lasting memories, there is another idea of circularity in the 21st century, that deals with 'spatiality', which is circular geometry.
After Alan Turing in the 20th century, today in the 21st century is the geometric algorithms.
Thus, I suggest 'time' is not a one-liner, but rather a circulatory and a collection of processes, that applies to our 'life'.
How I deal with this subject of 'time', between a literary procedure and a mathematical procedure is a great difference. One will be rhetorical, and another one will be logical. But this logical way makes more a new linguistic sense, rather sensory, which is 'un-sinn' (absent of sense is nonsense (unsinn) in terms of Wittgenstein's.
-> Max Eastley, his randomness and circularity, its manifold in a space (physicality)
-> Joseph Nechvatal (and Dadaism) in his musical composition (virtuality)
Sound composition es(it):
The starting point of this sound composition is human DNA in molecular biology. The organic time in the body is influenced by the universe. Namely, where we are on Earth, circular dynamics are diverse for us. Therefore, I consider time a collection of overlapping cycles, not a one-liner. I think that eternity is a movement between those periods (time-space). It is dynamic rather than static.
Experimental poem es (it) is based on an alphabetic play in German. Actually, it would consist of our physical memory in relation to the genetic memory through our brain; generally it is referred to as knowledge. Metaphorically it is our consciousness that sets the direction, probably it is our "will".
Solo Exhibition on Body
a.o.i. - lasting memories
The implementation of an artistic intervention in the context of interior architecture will take place in a space.
Artistic approach and challenge from the aspect of visual arts and architecture:
On body and spatiality in the space of frei-raum.berlin
The spatial installation in the space of frei-raum.berlin is a simple one with a 4ch discrete sound system. The room is an old building with a high ceiling and there is a small corridor that I will use as an instrument body. Thereby, the sounds are happenstance with a long silence in auditory memory. The space is the wooden floor. The visitors will take off their shoes before entering, and the room has an atmosphere of warm feeling, rather organic. For this work Untitled I - a.o.i. - lasting memories, the reverberation of the sound in this room is (de-)effective.
(original is 4ch diffusion and 2ch mono discrete spatial installation)
(...)
4ch-discrete Spatial Sound installation, Graphics (Notations), and Video of the performance, the visitor can watch it on the site of Research Catalogue, artistic research Untitled* by Erika Matsunami during the exhibition (offline) in frei-raum.berlin
Project space, frei-raum.berlin, February 16-19, 2023
Opening, Thursday, 15 February 2023
Notice
Untitled I : a.o.i. - lasting memories won't be represented at frei.raum-berlin in February 2023.
This artistic research Untitled I : a.o.i. - lasting memories as a project will be represented. The project is not started yet.
Artistic research Urban Hub
Artist’s talk a.o.i. - lasting memories, Friday, 16 February 2023
Chris Dahlgren and Erika Matsunami in dialogue
“(Un-)familiar with the arts” for a new avant-garde in the 21st century
Cultural patchwork family and its new knowledge through the arts, on our cultural memories and human evolution worldwide
Keywords: post-colonial; gender; equality; friendship; cultural evolution; transdisciplinarity; transversality
Background of artist’s talk:
What I studied from Alvin Lucier's exploration was conceptual freedom, what it means in music, and its creative agency and societal imagination, but from the critical aspect of technology and society. Alvin Lucier (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American composer; his artistic position as a composer was that he was in the Western contemporary music of American avant-garde. However, from the aspect of my artistic research, he addressed his oeuvres in terms of the liberal arts. In the 21st century, art will become even more centred around the liberal arts.
John Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) eliminated the ideology of Western traditional music in his Opus 4'33'' (1952). He suggested that in Western mathematics there is a zero, a different “existence” from the nothingness (無/Mu) of Japanese Zen Buddhism. Furthermore, on the stage, his work dealt with our contemporary “existence” in society; it was performative. Cage had thereby clarified that the musical score is a kind of musical law in Western classical music, and is an important ethic in Western Christian culture traditionally.
There are very few improvisational artists who are really free. Most improvisational artists have built their formalism today by establishing their own style. That's their status. Actually, improvisation is like fluxing, through a kind of generated knowledge of humans. There is no model of improvisation, but it is rather individual and unique. Here, improvisation-based performance is an artistic methodic aspect of the performance, thereby bodily expression will occur in the installation, as well as musically. It means that performers' existence in the installation during the performance is not for and towards notation or score as the musical law, but rather a space, probably a sensual space. The question is, what is a sensual space? Maybe no one knows about “sensual” because it's happening at the neuron level. So, 21st-century art is delicate and stable. As well as design is delicate and stable because of the nano-level of technology today.
Corona (1962) for pianist(s) by Toru Takemitsu (8 October 1930 – 20 February 1996) was an expression, and his unique artistic method and musical expression in the music was so-called expressionism.
In fact, in today's science of the universe, in cosmology, it is different waves that are delicate and stable and we can never hear. “Stable” here means an uninterrupted, constant range.
Why do we need to explore “something new” in the arts constantly? Because of our knowledge and awareness of humanity, which is a reflection of humanity and its ethics.
What is nature?
How do we think the synthetic? It consists of the natural sources that are a part of natural existence in the world of the universe including Earth, art and nature, and our lives.
Performance in the installation, Saturday, 17 February 2023
Improvisation-based performance, Chris Dahlgren (Viola da Gamba, Contrabass)* and Erika Matsunami (electronics)
*This a private event to dedicate Alvin Lucier, and a contribution of the artistic research a.o.i.-lasting memories by Erika Matsunami with the support by frei.raum-berlin.
Chris Dahlgren is the co-composer for the improvisation-based music performance in Untitled I a.o.i. - lasting memories. He was a student of Alvin Lucier's and did my M.A. in experimental composition with him at Wesleyan University.
Artistic approach and challenge in Untitled I - a.o.i. - lasting memories with Chris Dahlgren:
Both the sound and the tones are produced, whether they are from the analogue source or the digital source. That is, schall/sonic, timbre and frequency in natural science. The timbre of a sound depends on its waveform, which varies with its frequencies and relative intensities – relativity and intensity in natural science.
For me, creating sound works is often a kind of artistic act, more precisely, it is a "drawing". These compositions are a spatial installation in a representational space to me, which is an invisible multifold space. Therefore, our artistic challenge musically and artistically is on time stretch. Stretch is a very interesting term conceptually. For example, in German, it means Elastizität, which means resilience and flexibility in English. Chris Dahlgren has an artistic approach to “slow music” that was the starting point of his artistic career and his exploration in music. That was my great interest in collaborating with him in 2009. I think it was not only mine, it was also Alvin Lucier's. In this collaboration, in 2022/2023, we work in 'B♭/ B-flat'. B♭is the starting and ending of the notation “a.o.i. - lasting memories”.
Es ist klar, daß sich die Ethik nicht aussprechen läßt.
Die Ethik ist transcendental.
Aestethics and Ethics are one/(Ethik und Aesthetik sind eins.)3, Wittgenstein's.
In the composer Sannicandro Valerio's doctoral thesis is musical compositional “spatial figure”.
It is dealt with a performance in the spatial sound installation from the aspect of architecture and visual art on the subject of “spatiality”. Thereby, the visual codes (visual notation) will be transcribed, translated, and articulated into a space for creating an unconventional musical performance that consists of interpretation and improvisation. That is, a kind of intervention between music and visual arts in the context of architecture. Thereby, the visual codes (visual notation) will be transcribed, translated, and articulated into a space for creating an unconventional musical performance that consists of interpretation and improvisation. That is a kind of intervention between music and visual arts in the context of architecture.
Project space, frei-raum.berlin
An independent frei-raum with a focus on audiovisual art.
A space for awareness, where content can be experienced sensually. It includes kinetic abstract art, visual music, abstract paintings and films, audiovisual performances, sound sculpture and objects, installations. Space for workshops; space for listening; space for public experiences; space for readings; space for lingering;
References:
Artistic research; on Klänge – Space, Time and Body
Artistic research; Variations, Variations II and III
Artistic research; What is a musical error?
Artistic research; Silence surrounds us, silence around us - x
Chris Dahlgren – Instrumentalist / Komponist / Lehrer
Chris Dahlgren wurde am 13. November 1961 in New York, NY, geboren. Er erhielt seinen BM in Jazz Studies vom Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (1986) und einen MA in Komposition /Experimenteller Musik von der Wesleyan University (2003). Chris studierte Komposition bei La Monte Young, Anthony Braxton und Alvin Lucier und Kontrabass bei Barry Green, François Rabbath und Dave Holland. In den 80ern trat er mit vielen amerikanischen Jazzmeistern auf. In dieser Zeit etablierte er sich auch als Komponist und einzigartige Stimme am Bass und war Mitbegründer der Gruppe „Ekimi“ und des Musiklabels Krysdahlark. 1993 zog er zurück nach New York und spielte und nahm elf Jahre lang aktiv mit seinen eigenen Bands und anderen in der Downtown-Szene auf. Von 2001 bis 2009 war er reguläres Mitglied von Ensembles des wegweisenden Avantgarde-Komponisten und Holzbläser-Spielers Anthony Braxton. Seit 2004 lebt Chris in Berlin und spielt, komponiert und arbeitet mit vielen europäischen Künstlern zusammen. 2018 veröffentlichte er "Dhalgren", seine erste Aufnahme von Kompositionen als Singer / Songwriter, gefolgt von "Songs from a Dystopian Utopia" im Jahr 2020. Seit 2004 er unterrichtet und leitet Ensembles am Hanns Eisler HfM und Jazz Institut Berlin.
Visual artist, composer, artistic researcher
Current Projects:
Solo
- Green x (2023) (Workshop; digital and physical community), (artistic research Silence surrounds us, silence around us-x)
- Geometrische Ansichten (2023) (Spatial installation), (artistic research Silence surrounds us, silence around us-x)
- Circular geometrical composition (notation) a.o.i.- lasting memories, Stillleben/Still life, (artistic research Untitled*) (2021-2022)
Collective
- A series project Untitled: Solo Exhibition on Body, (artistic research Untitled*): The project Untitled I a.o.i. - lasting memories (work in flow): Graphics and 4ch- discrete Spatia Sound Installation and l Improvisation-based Performance in the installation with musician and composer Chris Dahlgren and a visual artist and composer Erika Matsunami, Project space frei-raum.berlin, opening 15th February, exhibition, artists talk and performance February 16-19, 2023/16. - 19. February 2023
- Urban Hub Foundation (art in public space, concept, research, production with an architect Hans-Gard Rudat, m.a.l.v.)
- Geometrische Anischten/Geometric Views (2023), Spatial installation, Artbook Untitled II Stillleben/Still life (work in progress)
Unitiled I a.o.i. - lasting memories (Untitled* version-copy for maintenance)