“BEHIND THE WORD”: PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
Stage Design, 2023
Projection screens, Technique, Lighting, Motion sculpture, moving images
Our new project “BEHIND THE WORD” starts with a series of 5 concerts, presented as an interdisciplinary performance in close collaboration with composer Hibiki Mukai and visual artist Adrian Walton Smith. The repertoire of this program is centered around Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, especially arranged as a gift for our ensemble by the Basque composer Joel Merah.
In this multi-media program, we are juxtaposing basic elements of music, visual art, video projections, and language.
THE PERFORMANCE
WATER, FIRE, SOUND (2023)
video projection, fire, water
As the musicians set up on stage, we start with a collaborative video piece, an original electro-acoustic soundscape by house composer Hibiki Mukai and slow-motion imagery by Adrian Walton-Smith.
PICTURES at an EXHIBITION (1874) Modest Mussorgsky
performed music & video projection
In slow motion a projection of a large human figure lights a violent blue flame. The camera zooms into the flame. The flame starts to revolve fast, creating a blue halo.
The large figure disappears in an instant. A young boy dressed in the same clothes returns in his place, These two figures imply two important moods (the optimism and the darkness) of the piece.
The slow motion video – necessary to show the virile blue flame – gives the standing human figure an unusual slowness, making a ‘heroic’ sculpture out of his presence.
SHIRAYURI (2023) Hibiki Mukai
original composition & video projection
The ‘feeling’ of this video projection is transparent, and reflects the modest and spacious character of the composition. Starting from silence, a revolving movement in the centre of a simple glass creates a small vortex. The glass is a ‘ready-made’, the vortex a virtual form created by motion in the water.
OVERTURE on HEBREW THEMES op. 34 (1919) Sergei Prokofiev
performed music & video projection
This piece has a strong ‘klezmer’ feel, colourful and vibrant. We will show video projections inspired by a fairground carrousel, fast revolving objects in phase with the shutter of the camera create new virtual forms.
This phased video image shows continuous small changes until the motor is switched off.
FIVE CORDS (2023)
Motion sculpture
Throughout the concert, visuals will be projected on two wide screens and on 5 single strings that will be located around the musicians. These strings will spin at different speeds, their movement acting as a “prism” that breaks up the light from the projected images into RGB components. Five single strings to the left and right of the performers are the only physical ‘sculptures’ present during the entire performance. These minimal strings can revolve at different speeds, creating a ‘visual music’. This effect is visible with the naked eye.
(design sketch)
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN
performed music & video projection
For an encore we will interpret the short piece “Romance for Voice and Piano (op. posth, 1893)” by Alexander Scriabin; composer and inventor of the light organ. This “tastiera per luce”, was a musical instrument which he invented for use in his work “Prometheus: Poem of Fire”.
In this way we make a final link with the fire theme in our performace and the moving strings, themselves a contemporary “light organ”.
