When I sifted through my composition journal over the weekend, I came upon this loose thread of an idea that still resonates with me. As is often the case, this piece began with an image that I translated into the above collage:
Just as the rush hour crowds have safely made their trains, and the terminal creaks towards the evening, schools of people walk together and then away, gently sensing their proximity to each other. They shift with the shuffling stragglers, altering their paths as they hear the possibility of a unity, each one of them sounding …
The idea I had was to have individuals walking around Grand Central terminal with handheld devices that sensed their proximity to other people with similar devices and reacted sonically to the degree of proximity. (In consultation with some engineers, I figured this could be done with iPhones, though I am still not thrilled with the idea that participation would be solely based on ones entry into the trendy tech world.)
As I continue to think about this piece I have rediscovered a piece called Vespers by Alvin Lucier that has performers moving around a dark room with echo-locators, modeled after the behavior of bats. I also have given some thoughts to something Anthony Braxton calls the friendly experiencer, where the listener actually controls his/her own experience of the music by adjusting their own position in a listening environment.
These are both fluid and interesting approaches to the possibilities of walking and sounding, and I know from my interactions with these two artists that they are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential impact.
I would like to contribute the possibility that walking and sounding also be considered from the vantage point of choreography. The above image of Grand Central raises the question of whether movement of people in a given space might be dictated by their sound, both in isolation (with headphones) and as a group in relation to one another. I am not necessarily thinking of something like the soundwalks of Janet Cardiff , nor of the derive of the Situationalists. No, the urge to organize movement through sound comes from a more base desire to create group formations, not unlike those of the brilliant Hollywood choregrapher, Busby Berkeley.
Having now gone down this road, perhaps this approach seems slightly manipulative, but I am hoping this is a necessary step on the way to something more subtle. Stay tuned…
All two-part combinations of arcs from corners and sides, and straight, not straight, and broken lines within a 36-inch (90 cm) grid.
June 2000
White crayon on blue wall
These are the extent of Sol Lewitt’s instructions for this stunning piece, which I saw up at Mass Moca two weeks ago. People talk about Sol Lewitt’s conceptualism, and I even bought a button emblazoned with the Lewittian mantra “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” But Wall Drawing 146A strikes me as a dose of good old fashioned serialism. I suppose serialism, on some level, was as much a concept as anything Lewitt imagined, but it has the reputation of being a rigid and prickly concept, quite the opposite of Lewitt’s gregarious, primary-colored inventions. Since I have never really had an interest in serialism in music, it was with some hesitation that I explored the serial aspects of this artwork. And it turned out what I found was in fact a serial process, but also one with a gentler and more intuitive touch.
Here is the key that the installers drew for the larger work on an outside wall, presumably to grant a behind-the-scenes look:
Wall Drawing 146A Key
Broken down to this straightforward list of materials, the extended piece around the corner starts to seem much more elemental. Instead of the complex tangle of lines, I saw the finite range of combinations. Instead of something without beginning or end, I saw the slow drift from solid lines through curves to dotted lines. The series of combinations ends up being less a dramatic display of wit and ingenuity and more a straightforward list of possibilities.
The neat thing that got me was the fact that the combinations exhaust themselves before they use up all of the wall space. So there are two blank squares at the end of the horizontal plane. I thought the fact that the math didn’t quite work out exactly was a mysterious and lovely part of the piece. And it was further evidence in my mind of a less obsessive serial approach. What a relief to know that all ideas aren’t quite as perfect as they first seem.
http://aaronsiegel.net/wp-content/uploads/Aaron-Siegel-Logo-300x138.jpg00Aaron Siegelhttp://aaronsiegel.net/wp-content/uploads/Aaron-Siegel-Logo-300x138.jpgAaron Siegel2009-08-08 21:10:232009-08-09 10:53:15Sol Lewitt and the Gentle Serialism
Lost Ideas – Walking and Sounding
When I sifted through my composition journal over the weekend, I came upon this loose thread of an idea that still resonates with me. As is often the case, this piece began with an image that I translated into the above collage:
The idea I had was to have individuals walking around Grand Central terminal with handheld devices that sensed their proximity to other people with similar devices and reacted sonically to the degree of proximity. (In consultation with some engineers, I figured this could be done with iPhones, though I am still not thrilled with the idea that participation would be solely based on ones entry into the trendy tech world.)
As I continue to think about this piece I have rediscovered a piece called Vespers by Alvin Lucier that has performers moving around a dark room with echo-locators, modeled after the behavior of bats. I also have given some thoughts to something Anthony Braxton calls the friendly experiencer, where the listener actually controls his/her own experience of the music by adjusting their own position in a listening environment.
These are both fluid and interesting approaches to the possibilities of walking and sounding, and I know from my interactions with these two artists that they are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential impact.
I would like to contribute the possibility that walking and sounding also be considered from the vantage point of choreography. The above image of Grand Central raises the question of whether movement of people in a given space might be dictated by their sound, both in isolation (with headphones) and as a group in relation to one another. I am not necessarily thinking of something like the soundwalks of Janet Cardiff , nor of the derive of the Situationalists. No, the urge to organize movement through sound comes from a more base desire to create group formations, not unlike those of the brilliant Hollywood choregrapher, Busby Berkeley.
Having now gone down this road, perhaps this approach seems slightly manipulative, but I am hoping this is a necessary step on the way to something more subtle. Stay tuned…
Sol Lewitt and the Gentle Serialism
Wall Drawing 146A
All two-part combinations of arcs from corners and sides, and straight, not straight, and broken lines within a 36-inch (90 cm) grid.
June 2000
White crayon on blue wall
These are the extent of Sol Lewitt’s instructions for this stunning piece, which I saw up at Mass Moca two weeks ago. People talk about Sol Lewitt’s conceptualism, and I even bought a button emblazoned with the Lewittian mantra “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” But Wall Drawing 146A strikes me as a dose of good old fashioned serialism. I suppose serialism, on some level, was as much a concept as anything Lewitt imagined, but it has the reputation of being a rigid and prickly concept, quite the opposite of Lewitt’s gregarious, primary-colored inventions. Since I have never really had an interest in serialism in music, it was with some hesitation that I explored the serial aspects of this artwork. And it turned out what I found was in fact a serial process, but also one with a gentler and more intuitive touch.
Here is the key that the installers drew for the larger work on an outside wall, presumably to grant a behind-the-scenes look:
Wall Drawing 146A Key
Broken down to this straightforward list of materials, the extended piece around the corner starts to seem much more elemental. Instead of the complex tangle of lines, I saw the finite range of combinations. Instead of something without beginning or end, I saw the slow drift from solid lines through curves to dotted lines. The series of combinations ends up being less a dramatic display of wit and ingenuity and more a straightforward list of possibilities.
The neat thing that got me was the fact that the combinations exhaust themselves before they use up all of the wall space. So there are two blank squares at the end of the horizontal plane. I thought the fact that the math didn’t quite work out exactly was a mysterious and lovely part of the piece. And it was further evidence in my mind of a less obsessive serial approach. What a relief to know that all ideas aren’t quite as perfect as they first seem.