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INBETWEEN THINGS
SUITCASE CONCERTS (1995-1999)
Small Performances with Sound, Light & Image
(click to enlarge)The suitcase concerts consist of a choreography of multiple, independent and extremely individual pieces, which are performed both solo and with audience participatition. The program is varied in character and stands conceptually between performance art and contemporary music. It operates however on the basis of „more for less“. All of the works are realized with simple means, although they use this to reach a complex aesthetic end. A few of the instruments from the used consists of a small speaker that is played with cupped hands, a megaphone that creates feedback with trombone mutes, music boxes with endless punch card loops. So all of the pieces operate with ready-mades, half ready-mades and toys in order to create with the everyday unheard sounds and visual constructs. In the piece "La Mariage" (illustration), for example, two performers built a complex sculpture made of paper tape as they create ambient music by turning the cranks of music boxes. The material provided for the realization of the pieces needed, the instruments and even table and chair pack in a single suitcase.
Performers: Art Clay & Audience Participants
Performance Space: Tours in Germany, Switzerland, Austria & Holland
AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1993)
Artificial Reality for a Performer
(click to enlarge)A repertoire of performative pieces based on the art theories of Marcel Duchamp and programmed, composed and written to provide an immersive environment into which the participant can enter in order to interact with the works of a past artist. The main work is „Auto-Bio-Graphy“, It is a work that deals with the influence of an artist on another. Like the other works, this piece allows for the exploration of the visual, aural and linguistic vocabulary of a particular artist, who has served as an inspiration to the composer, and allows the composer to study the artist as a compositional problem. The center movement ‘Erratum’ is an inspiration from the Erratum Musical of Marcel Duchamp. The visual and musical content of the complete piece could be seen as an extended variation in time and color based on the pitch and text content of that of Duchamp’s. Briefly, the Erratum movement of Auto-bio-Graphy in comparison with that of Duchamp’s Erratum contains rhythmic, harmonic aspects in combination with text fragments of the original integrated into a multimedia structure to form a large dynamic (constantly changing) composition. The basic formal elements of this piece are an automatic compositional process, the biography of any artist, Marcel Duchamp in this instance, and a graphic representation as score- hence the title: Auto-bio-graphy. The piece is a multimedia presentation completely controlled by physical movement of the performer in free space. The piece uses the Big Eye video program developed by Tom Demeyer at Steim, Amsterdam, Holland.
Performers: Art Clay
Performance Space: STEIM, Amsterdam, Holland; Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg, Germany
GEBROCHENE WORTE (1997-2000)
Hörspiel Live
(click to enlarge)The starting point for this project is the late writings of the Swiss writer and artists Urs Jaeggi. The objective of the project is the connection between text and music and how each confronts and influences each other within the framework of live-performance. The artistic process consists of using text as a generator for music and to link two disciplines like literature and music spatially. In „Aria for a Glass“ and „Cantata“ the text is transformed into atmosphere in sound, so that its psychological depth gets conveyed to the listener. The style of the texts is inspired from patients at the now defunct sanatorium in Voltera, whose verbal utterances consisted of chained together words. This approach resulted in a special compositional approach for works for speaking voice and diverse sounds from the everyday. In the work "Lange Jahre Stille", for example, long and short sections of text are combined with the sounds of breaking Baumnusse rotating tuning forks and much more. The sounds join and music becomes word in space and vice versa.
Performers: Art Clay, Urs Jaeggi & Erratum Ensemble
Performance Spaces: Museums, Galleries , Literature Houses in Germany and Switzerland
HARMONIC RAKING (2000)
Installation for a Set of Rakes
(click to enlarge)The basic elements of the installation are seven black lacquered rakes, whose teeth stand in harmonic relation to one another and a large rectangular garden area of black sand placed at odd angles to the room it is exhibited in. These two elements and their placement within the space, creates in turn a situation in which harmonic balance must be sought. With each action taken by an individual using the rakes in the sand, the installation turns into a dynamic, kinesthetic sculpture demanding inner an outward harmony from the participant.
Artists: Art Clay & Gäste
Performance Space: Die Mitte, Basle, Switzerland