Interim

composition for ensemble, mezzo soprano, samples and video

texts taken from a novel by Georges Perec

mezzo, fl. cl. trb. vl. pf. cb. e.guitar, perc. samples, video

Kristina Fuchs, mezzo soprano

ensemble-MAE, Otto Tausk, conductor

 

premiere: 27 Feb. 2007, Paradiso, Amsterdam.

"In Interim I wanted to start working from Species of Spaces by Georges Perec, a novel that deals in many ways with space. Perec takes a very intuitive journey through the realms of his memories, concepts and thoughts and meanders through his universe showing us a vast number of perspectives on the concept of space.

Musically I created a stand-still: chords try to progress, but freeze in time, each instrument freezing into it’s own tiny loop. The lengths of these loops vary, slowly generating patterns that seem to create a new space within the music. A new space in which the soprano finds her way, just as the instruments start creating their own solo spaces."

Occasionally during the piece, there are images of a room, a simple generic space, in which gravity keeps changing. Gravity changes the space dramatically even though it remains the same space all along.

In a very simple way this work manages to captivate something mesmerizing. All film shots were made with a miniture set, that could turn around it's axis in 0,1 second. Inside, a special 'slow motion' camera was fitted, the kind of camera fitted in cars when they go through the crash-test: surviving high G-forces. Also special lights were fitted to the model, so the light always moves with the set, so the shadows do not change in the shot. At 1000 frames per second, the camera made some stunning images to go with Perecs crazy-dreamily imagination.

Excerpt of Interim (video only, no live images available)