Jean Genet's The Miracle of the Rose made a great impression on me many years ago. Recently I discovered a very old photocopy I had made of a short passage of the work wedged in a photo album from the 80s. In it Genet considers the mastery of time through the performance of gestures with infinite slowness - that "Eternity flows into the curve of a gesture". This text on the time-altering nature of solitary confinement forms the basis of my work for Sound Collectors.
The text itself - read by Australian/French artist Emmanuelle Zagoria - becomes the gesture that is curved in time. The spoken phrases are transduced for the two percussionists into gestures exploring their cadence and timbre via varied instruments and notational approaches.
The text itself - read by Australian/French artist Emmanuelle Zagoria - becomes the gesture that is curved in time. The spoken phrases are transduced for the two percussionists into gestures exploring their cadence and timbre via varied instruments and notational approaches.
The notation is gradually accumulating conventions. In the passage below player 2 occupies the lower half of the page. The notation indicates the amplitude of the sound (the vertical height), the timbral richness (hue), onset of event (stem) and direction of the bow (beam). The upper half of the score (player 1) the notation indicates event onset, timbre and direction in the same way and the beam type also indicates a cymbal roll. Rhythms played on the "5 objects" are notated more-or-less traditionally.
In the passage above the 2nd player is bowing 5 different keys on the vibraphone (pitches have not yet been added). The 1st player is lowering a medium-sized chain onto the keys of a second vibraphone. The red note-heads and the beams indication lowering the chain onto the keys and orange note-heads (and beams) indicate lifting the chain off the key (both of which produce sound).
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