projective space | fragments from a process

a research blog by stephanie kern for the 90 day curatorial academy at machine project, june - august 2012.

[projectivespace-blog]

polytope de cluny, iannis xenakis, 1972

POLYTOPES" IS THE COLLECTIVE NAME of a series of multimedia installations, including sound, light and architecture, conceived by IANNIS XENAKIS during the 1960s and 1970s. The word "polytope" is Greek; in this context it has to be interpreted literally: poly means "a lot, several," while topos means "place." Furthermore, every Polytope bears the name of the site or the city where it has been installed. The name of these spectacles already indicates that here, we are dealing not only with multimedia works (though the very notion of multimedia was then not yet used to designate this kind of work as is the case today), but with an art that fully integrates "space."

-Sven Sterken, Towards a space-time art: Iannis Xenakis's Polytopes

a video of the construction of polytope de cluny.

sound recording.

alex ross article, waveform.

[projectivespace-blog]

texts

museum of obsessions, harald szeemann / finite and infinite games - chapter 4. a finite game occurs within a world, james p. carse / the library as space, alberto manguel / species of spaces, georges perec / beyond the dream syndicate: tony conrad and the arts after cage - chapter 1. what is a minor history?, branden w. joseph / parade of the damned - part 1, charles fort / turning, irit rogoff / earthworms dancing: notes for a biennial in slow motion, raqs media collective

[projectivespace-blog]

harald szeemann / the agency for intellectual guest labor / museum of obsessions

[projectivespace-blog]

music of the orgien mysterien theater

hermann nitsch (associated with the vienna actionists) and his thoughts on theatrical space and the role of music in the o.m. theater (1962-1998.)

although i am drawn to nitsch's sentiments in the below text, i am still undecided about my opinion of the carnage enacted by the actual plays. i have a feeling that as an audience member the revulsion was overwhelming.*

the essentially new dimension of my theatre is the overcoming of role-play by staging real happenings. real happenings automatically call for the gesamtkunstwerk. they are to be experienced tangibly through all five senses. they can be tasted, smelt, they are to be heard, to be seen and to be touched. besides the visual dominance of my theatre, which strives to uncouple itself from language, noise is a key factor. noise takes over for the moment the role of music in my gesamtkunstwerk. my music has its roots in crying out, in clamor, it is tied to the most extreme excitation, which is a necessity of theatre. in terms of human history, the scream precedes the word, it occurs whenever excitation is so intense that the word is not enough. my music is in no way illustrative or imposed on the actions. it comes literally from the excitation generated by what's happening and its commotion. it intensifies the action, the action activates the music. it digs deeper into the abysses of the drama's catastrophe. subsequently my acoustic composition has moved beyond the extreme archaic possibilities of expression, which i would nevertheless leave entirely. the acoustic color has become increasingly crucial. a kind of organ sound emanating from the whole orchestra is being sought. i came across the music of the o.m. theatre directly through my immersion in the action.

before my efforts there was the music of the second viennese school, schönberg, webern, for whom i have so much respect that i did not want to simply rehash them. an eruption out of them had to be found. something newly born arose out of the action. chance acquired an important role. john cage contributed to this opening. on the other hand, very different sound dimensions were needed for the length of a 6-day play. enormous blocks and walls of sound were employed. the orchestration tends towards the gigantic. almost a turn back to wagner, bruckner and scriabin emerges. an orgiastic music is to transpose us to an intensive state wherein we find being. the o.m. theatre is comparable to a giant symphony with six movements. the sensory intensive impressions brought about the orgiastic disembowelment actions of the o.m. theatre, the experience of blood, flesh and intenstines, seen, smelt and tasted, is to escalate into roaring, belling sounds. just as intrinsic to my music is the meditative calm of the adagio. the tranquility of the starry sky, the serene orbits of the heavenly bodies are to be savored and the universe losing itself in the infinite is to be sounded out. the music of this gesamtkunstwerk is the life-affirming mysticism of being.

hermann nitsch, 1999

recording of the soundwall, performed by a string quartet in a castle courtyard just after dusk. 

*it is interesting to note that in this image (with jonas mekas) all the audience members are male and seem to be closing in on the sacrifice of animal female blood.

[projectivespace-blog]

Renato Leotta “Palomar” at Galleria Gentili, Prato

room to breath and make connections

[projectivespace-blog]

ezra buchla just turned me onto this gestural performance piece called  SPACECRAFT, written by frederic rzewsksi, and performed above by musica electtronica viva (mev) in 1967. the performance is hard to record (and hard to listen to) because the improvisation is about a potential communal energy that can be found in the space, the room, the location, in whatever environment it is performed. in exploring that energy there is a possible harmony, but also a possible disharmony. this is the tension that is inherent in the performance. rzewski's text is an essential part of understanding the piece as it operates as a guide, a blueprint, a plan that illustrates a theater of the mind as a labrynth projected into physical space, which can then be traveled by others through sound, energy and gesture.

the pdf can be found here: plan for SPACECRAFT (1967) pdf

and a weblink here: plan for SPACECRAFT

[projectivespace-blog]

"Froebel designed his educational experience around a series of physical and mental activities, among them singing, dancing and gardening. At the heart of this pedagogical universe were formalized exercises centered round a set of “occupational gifts,” what we today (with sadly diminished vision) might call educational toys. Twenty in number, the gifts were tools designed to encourage the exploration of form. How, for example, could lines or squares or cubes be arranged to produce the form of a bird or a chair or a tree, or a pleasing, snowflake symmetry. As a crystal grows from its molecular seed, so too animals, plants and buildings could be assembled from the primitive units of the Froebelian gifts. Cutting and folding paper, weaving together wooden sticks, sewing thread onto cards, and building with blocks of various sizes, teachers and pupils together would construct the world. The exercises focused on making three types of forms: forms of nature (or life, and things of the world), forms of beauty (art), and forms of knowledge (science, mathematics and especially geometry). In the course of their training, teachers fabricated sample exercises of “fancy work” that they arranged in albums, progressing from simple to more complex designs."

-Margaret Wertheim, The Seed-Bed

norman brosterman calls froebel's invention of kindergarten "the seed pearl of the modern era."  at the core of this nascent form of childhood pedagogy was the idea that  learning forms of nature, forms of beauty and forms of knowledge all in combination was an essential way to develop our sense of space and place in relation to the physical and mental world. this idea has had dramatic effects on how we exist and relate to space. a hybrid of the building blocks of nature, art, mathematics, and the body.

[projectivespace-blog]

species of spaces, by georges perec

the first two pages of species are for me a fundamental starting point to mapping spaces - categories, borders, dimensions and potentials. it provides a structure to get lost in.