|
Moving – frozen. Sound and body figures
'Peter A. Egger
Peter A. Egger
/
'Mia Zabelka
Mia Zabelka
Electro-acoustic performance for synth-violin, baritone saxophone, long strings, 3 percussionists on special steel instruments, sound artist, voice performer, image-LIGHT-space-processes, sound track.
Idea, composition, synth-violin, sound direction: Mia Zabelka
Video, image and light direction: Peter A. Egger
Stage objects: Hans Kuppelwicscr
Commissioned by Ars ElectronicaNetwork of nerves, figures in space:
EXPERIENCING CORPOREALITY. UNBURIED SIGNS. EMOTIONS. "bewegt – erstarrt" ("moving – frozen") is an electro-acoustic performance in 4 parts confronting the physical presence of the musicians with the synthetic reality of the video and sound track. Each of these four parts incorporates a video interlude or video postlude, respectively.
It is the main concern of the music-theatre to exhibit the permanently creative moments of the human individual amidst a stage-setting of digital sound-planes, levels of sound-sculptures and spatial installations. The powerful, energetic music and performance of Mia Zabelka and her improvisations on the violin are counterpointed by video sequences from Peter Egger. Metal/glass objects by Hans Kuppelwiescr and a long-string installation by Paul Panhuysen are incorporated in the sound spectrum as are a baritone saxophone, percussionists, a sound artist, a voice actress, and tape.
There are no plots nor roles in "bewegt-erstarrt". The debris of contents is eliminated so as to present as clearly as possible the tensions of human isolation, of a deadening environment, of the preoccupation by media technology, and of a rising hope. The musicians and performers are the 'prototypes' of suffering, of lust, adaptation, and power … They employ their voices, their bodies, space, and again and again the element of improvisation to express themselves.
Concordant videographs and light spaces establish a common resonance of sound, shape, colour, and movement by cutting various materials "I try to combine elements of music and the theatre, to unite improvisation and composition, which often makes the musical score look like a film script. Music and the scene are inseparable components of 'bewegt – erstarrt': The percussionists play on great metal sculptures that are both elements of scenery and objects in space. The performers produce highly differentiated sounds similar to animal voices and act like taut strings. Their movements correspond to those of a network of mega-strings spanning the stage and played by hands like a giant violin. In the beginning the bodies of the performers and musicians are present only as formal 'data', as animal bodies, human bodies, as toys of technology, electric bodies." The video images respond to and increase the velocity, the extent of the musical and physical gesture in direct interplay with the musicians.
The four parts of the performance are called:
Unconventional Individuality
Reglementation + Security
Dependance + Destruction
Rising Hopes + Vision of the Future
The leitmotif of the first part is the BODY. The perceptible presence of bodies, their tensions, their familiarities, their shadow formations marked by the contrast of the natural eroticism of the body and its mechanical properties."Due to my interest in musical improvisation, I radicalize the unique significance of the moment by leaving more space to the creative responsibility of the individual musicians and simultaneously raising the challenge. Thus the static and reproductive element is being avoided. My music can grow and expand continuously. With this approach I experiment with unconventional timbres and sound structures.
During the performance my body is studded with microphones so that every movement produces numerous sounds. The signals of these microphones are transmitted to a sound modulator before being amplified. A modulated tone can thus be added to the noises. The sounds of the violin are also amplified electrically and modulated simultaneously by different effect equipment."
M.Z. Two music pieces determine what happens in this part:
"sonde" ("probe") for voices, saxophone, synthesizer, drums, video and sound track
"spurenatmen" ("breathing traces") for violin, contact microphones, synthesizer, and sound track
The exemplary wiring diagram of emotional and musical events; their arrivals as well as their departures are channelled and controlled visually as chromatic inscriptions.
The second part focusses on the ALTER EGO. Seduction as an enigmatic duel-like relation, mysterious attraction and distance, challenge and constant antagonism, a game as it were.
The pieces are called:
'gegenüber zone' ('opposite zone') for voice, synth-violin, long-strings, video and sound track
'innen bewegt' ('inwardly moved') for violin, saxophone, synthesizer, voices, percussion, and sound track
The third part of the performance is concerned with BODIES AND POWER. The distances of one body to the other, energies freezing at their own fire, unless there is the chance of an inward explosion, an implosion. The performers move in indifferent space.
The third part is divided into:
'druckspuren gezeichnet' ('prints drawn') for violin, sound objects and sound track
'ekstatisch geruckt' ('shifted ecstatically') for voices, saxophone, synthesizer, sound objects, synth-violin, long strings, video and sound track"As I want my music to have a corporeal, multi-dimensional quality, I try to 'explode' this music as a disturbing and exciting factor.
By including scenic elements – human acting, light, space, stage, colour, shape -extreme forms of expression, the 'quiet' and the 'ecstasy of the sounds', obtain more complexity and dimensions and also become expanded and more readily comprehensible."
M.Z. "Sketching, striking out and painting over real pictures leads to another reality, raised speed of the individual data leads to signs of a new identity.
In my work with actual material, I myself fall victim to the libido of the material chosen. In the artistic consideration the shifted dispositive usually leads to abandoning the recognizable picture."
P.E. The leitmotif of the last section is THE WOMAN.
The body as female archetype, as the vessel of sensitivity.
The performers are beyond the inferno and beyond corporeality, the terrestrial reality appears to be eccentric and hyperreal.
The pieces of music are called:
'raumstillen gefaltet' ('pieces of music folded') for violin, contact microphones, long strings and sound track
'pulse tönen' ('pulses sound') for synth-violin, voices, saxophone, drums, synthesizer, sound objects, long strings, video and sound track
Pictures as detached parts, subtly explored situations, subject to personal agitation, finally leaving no mnemonic material, no instances for identification or familiar shapes."By the interaction, the tension of sound and quiet and scream as signs for the rebellion – the state of tension inherent to my music – I want to rouse the awareness of my listeners and to challenge their emotionality. I do not seek identification but the opportunity for the listener to become aware of himself."
M.Z. in my improvisations can be heard what resounds within me, what scares me, what rouses my desire – wherever these injuries or desires may come from.
there is something that lifts up my body, that makes it swell, that makes it tense, carries it to the point of bursting, and at the same time presses it down and weakens it.
The movement of the body runs below the line of the melody, which is often complicated and ambiguous, is a stifled stir of instincts marked by breathing, by modulation (in permanent change and permanent continuation), by rhythmic beats (pulsato). (this does not imply that the concern with the body is to replace the music. it does not suffice to respond to the body and to use it as a support.)
my improvisations are to be taken as expansions of the body. they are erotical by themselves. if affect becomes manifest in signs it does not elude representation.
my improvisation and simultaneous listening in full consciousness of the body necessitates the breaking up of the melody (as a symbol of restlessness) and testing the limits, hence the line of the melody is "unmarkedly" expressive.
although I do not think it possible to realize a BEYOND SELF-PORTRAYAL, I at least try an approximation, for I am not interested in self-reduction to a private utopia. this approximation is attempted by introducing certain sound patterns into my improvisations and through the formal structures of the tape playbacks.
music is in process and changing, my pieces are continuously subject to change (as is life), they exhibit elasticity and differ from one performance to the other, for they live with me in the course of the transformations that I am undergoing.
with the tape playbacks complex sound materials (concrete sounds) are being introduced. their more or less realistic performance produces public soundspace, as it were, they constitute a new challenge and have me relate my improvisations to them.
I am not really concerned with the confrontation of body and environment sounds or the bridging of their mutual distances, music to me is the possible draft of an acoustic environment, filtered through the bodies of those who create the sounds, that is the musicians. (materiality as the root language of the body modulates the around-sounds of musical drafts, it formulates spontaneously resonance and commentary.)
the tape playbacks do not present the sounds of our environment in the rough. they can be heard as part of the draft of a subjective acoustic environment, they sound in the spectrum of a personal sound aura. (whereas the unmodified, only amplified body noises form an intimate sound aura.)
|
