Rie Nakajima, David Toop, Lucie Štěpánková, Iklectik, David Toop’s book launch
Seeing Rie perform is always full of surprises and adventurous. Playfulness is carried all along, she sits in the middle of her toys and triggers them, arrange them. The objects speak for themselves.
the elastic surface tied on the water bottle becomes the drum skin. what I think its so precious is the subtle contact between the motor and the objects, especially in the situation that two almost touches, or when the object rolling past by the motor, gently touches it then slowly leaves it.
reminds me of Konrad Sprenger’s instruments, musician collaborated with the Honey Suckle Company (ICA show), the same sense of touch and sound evolved from subtle friction was explored:
The room-hurdy-gurdy, a huge hand-organ set into a room, appears in the pieces Eswerde and Einstellung, beside the revolving harps and the self-playing instruments. The low sounds of this hurdy-gurdy, with the almost tuneless croaking of the revolving harps, form several layers of melodic patterns which remind one of the Japanese Gagaku-music or the pleasant splashing of the repetitive movements of one of Jean Tinguely’s springs; whereas the low sounds of the drum in Eswerde, produced on the soundboard of the hurdy-gurdy, created a sublime stomping energy.
(by Michael Hiltbrunner)
the difference between these two practice is, Rie’s performance is more spontaneous and mixing her interaction with the objects as a performer while in Sprenger’s works the objects work in a pre-set way but its minimalist approach encourage audience to wait and listen to each individual sounding event.
