Kinetic Setting: A portrait of gustav mahler's second symphony (resurrection)
A series of seven wooden sculptures, 30 minute sound and vibration track.
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Made from various types of woods these parts are each a synaesthetic physical portrait of the five movements of Mahler's second symphony. The visual language uses instrumental forms as it's starting point, starting with a miniature of a bass viol attributed to John Rose of Bridewell, London, c1600. Using the familiar and historical to iterate and reference forms into the unfamiliar the objects become more and more about the imagination, shape, and effect of the sounds, becoming recognizable as portraits of the work.
Portraits of people are easy to recognise if we know the person. But how do we recognize a piece of music? What about a portrait of a piece of music, rendered through kinetic sculpture? If there is a line between a portrait and a mere picture of a person, where does that line fall in relation to music and objects? How well must we know a piece of music in order to recognise a sculpture of it?
The starting point of my research-based artwork were these questions of recognition of the known and unknown. How does a conductor recognise a piece of music if they have never heard it? And if they have heard it, how can they be sure it is not just a poor portrait, barely resembling the actual music? To explore these questions I used the conductor’s toolbox—choosing analysis and arrangement as the palette. Using a single piece of music— Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony (Resurrection)—as a basis, I wanted to know: Is it possible to construct a sculpture that retains the elements that make it musically significant?
The research is conducted using two primary methods: first, an autoethnographic process of becoming a conductor and a tactile sculptural process arising from a synaesthetic memory where shapes trigger the musical imagination of the specific movements. The autoethnographic study consisted of more than a year of conducting studies, masterclasses (both active and passive) with and extensive discussions and interviews with Jorma Panula, Petri Sakari, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Olli Vartiainen, Ville Mankkinen, and Juha Törmä, learning rehearsing various movements from works such as Beethoven’s Second Symphony, Brahms’s Third Symphony, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, Strauss’s Don Juan, and Mahler's Fourth Symphony.
This research lead to the idea of creating an arrangement—a chamber orchestra reduction—of Mahler’s Second Symphony, finished of the first and second movement and conducted (and documented) with the Panula Academy orchestra. These arrangements were further reduced for string quartet, and again further iterated for soloist until all these elements were used to materialise the wooden objects with kinetic potential that represent all five movements of the symphony. The final installation collaborated with singer Loré Lixenberg, to record several performances of soloist part of the 4th movement of the symphony and constructed from them a soundtrack for each sculpture, combined with a vibrational composition, which played in the exhibition space.
Portraits of people are easy to recognise if we know the person. But how do we recognize a piece of music? What about a portrait of a piece of music, rendered through kinetic sculpture? If there is a line between a portrait and a mere picture of a person, where does that line fall in relation to music and objects? How well must we know a piece of music in order to recognise a sculpture of it?
The starting point of my research-based artwork were these questions of recognition of the known and unknown. How does a conductor recognise a piece of music if they have never heard it? And if they have heard it, how can they be sure it is not just a poor portrait, barely resembling the actual music? To explore these questions I used the conductor’s toolbox—choosing analysis and arrangement as the palette. Using a single piece of music— Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony (Resurrection)—as a basis, I wanted to know: Is it possible to construct a sculpture that retains the elements that make it musically significant?
The research is conducted using two primary methods: first, an autoethnographic process of becoming a conductor and a tactile sculptural process arising from a synaesthetic memory where shapes trigger the musical imagination of the specific movements. The autoethnographic study consisted of more than a year of conducting studies, masterclasses (both active and passive) with and extensive discussions and interviews with Jorma Panula, Petri Sakari, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Olli Vartiainen, Ville Mankkinen, and Juha Törmä, learning rehearsing various movements from works such as Beethoven’s Second Symphony, Brahms’s Third Symphony, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, Strauss’s Don Juan, and Mahler's Fourth Symphony.
This research lead to the idea of creating an arrangement—a chamber orchestra reduction—of Mahler’s Second Symphony, finished of the first and second movement and conducted (and documented) with the Panula Academy orchestra. These arrangements were further reduced for string quartet, and again further iterated for soloist until all these elements were used to materialise the wooden objects with kinetic potential that represent all five movements of the symphony. The final installation collaborated with singer Loré Lixenberg, to record several performances of soloist part of the 4th movement of the symphony and constructed from them a soundtrack for each sculpture, combined with a vibrational composition, which played in the exhibition space.
