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Series and Place M. J. Grant Version of record first published: 17 May 2012
To cite this article: M. J. Grant (2011): Series and Place, Contemporary Music Review, 30:6, 525-542 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2011.676899
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Contemporary Music Review Vol. 30, No. 6, December 2011, pp. 525–542
Series and Place
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M. J. Grant
The phrase ‘site-specific music’ is commonly used to describe developments in music since the latter part of the twentieth century in which the exact environment chosen is integral to the conception of the piece or the installation. In this essay, I shall argue that the alternative term ‘place-specific music’ may help describe one of the most important characteristics of many pieces and projects by Wandelweiser composers: a relationship to the place of performance which is rarely a predetermining factor in the structure of the piece, but which arises from the composers’ and performers’ own predilection for particular types of performance space, and the dynamic and temporal structure typical of the Wandelweiser aesthetic. In this regard, I will also explore the role of the principle of series in this music. The essay will focus particularly but not exclusively on the composer Carlo Inderhees, and especially the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur, which he realized together with the artist Christoph Nicolaus. Keywords: Inderhees; place; series; time; Wandelweiser Series When two elements—such as objects, events and tones—are positioned in relation to each other, the dynamic that results is not only more than the sum of its parts: it also transforms how we perceive the elements themselves. What kind of dynamic is created depends on how exactly the elements are positioned and on the nature of the elements themselves: this is the principle behind all artistic forming processes. If the elements are positioned in such a way that they continue to be perceived as individual elements, and not only in their conjunction with other elements—for example, when there is still a clear boundary between them—then the overall impression is profoundly different from an arrangement in which they touch on each other directly. Two or more pictures, separately framed, yet conceptually bound together and exhibited as such, have a different impact on each other and on us than any one of the pictures seen on its own. Two or more events in a piece of music, sounding for themselves, separated either through long rests or through a very significant Einsatzabstand between each event, are more likely to be perceived as series of events rather than a movement, or a melody, or a gesture. ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) ª 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2011.676899
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The word ‘series’, in this context, is clearly not to be confused with its more normal musicological usage, namely in connection with serial music or serielle Musik. Instead, it refers here to a concept applied to the visual arts long before music and describes any one of a number of approaches in which individual elements are subject to—and expressions of—a unifying ordering principle applied to each of them in turn, and thus subject to repetition.1 Precursors of this principle can be found, inter alia, in Paul Ce´zanne’s paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, a subject to which he returned throughout his artistic career: though not intended as a series, viewing these paintings together only increases our awareness of the features and the details of each, and of how Ce´zanne’s style develops, becoming increasingly abstract, and gradually darkening from the green-fawn-white of the early depictions to the blue and purple tones of the last. A linear development of this kind is, however, only one of the possible forms a series can take. Later, the principle of repetition would be implemented more consciously in the work of artists as different as Frank Stella, Roman Opalka, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, amongst many others. For example, the Bechers’ photographic series of monuments to industrial life, such as Wassertu¨rme (Water Towers, 1998), are displayed together in a limited space—as a unit made up of several units. By placing the photographs together in this way, seemingly trivial features of each object photographed are cast in a new light, precisely because of the repetition of both principle and subject in the other photographs exhibited. Because it has to do with repetition, series is always a temporal category: this is as true of the visual arts as it is music, that art which aestheticians persist in naming the more truly temporal. And although there are some similar procedures in earlier musical composition, it is probably in the music of many composers associated with the Wandelweiser group—particularly music written in the late 1990s—in which this principle of series is most consciously reflected in compositional terms. There are three separate and related levels on which this occurs. First, series is used as a formal principle within individual pieces, typically by interspersing sound events of a particular and generally identical length with rests also of predefined length. Second, there are also series of pieces, each piece in the series generally abiding to the same structural principles as the others. And on a third and higher level yet, there are often series of performances. Here, I am thinking not so much of the long-running series of concerts organized by, inter alia, Antoine Beuger in Du¨sseldorf, Ju¨rg Frey in Aarau and Christoph Nicolaus in Munich, but performance projects conceived in such a way that the time and the place of the performance, the regularity of the occurrence over a longer or shorter period of time, and thus the very act of attendance, become part of the concept, and an integral part of the experience. This, then, brings us to a second and related category that becomes clearly focused in Wandelweiser projects, namely place. Place The term ‘place’, as I use it here, can best be understood by relating it to two other terms: ‘site’ (particularly in the context of ‘site-specific art’ and ‘site-specific
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music’), and ‘place’ and ‘non-place’ as used in sociological and anthropological literature. ‘Site-specific music’ is the term generally used to describe music where the location in which the music sounds is integral to the composition, or itself is ‘composed’ through the music; it therefore describes one of the most important developments in musical composition since around the last quarter of the twentieth century.2 Many sound installations fall into this category, and generally speaking, there are probably more examples of site-specific music that take the form of installations than that rely on live performance, despite many examples that integrate elements of both (including installations which react to the presence or input of visitors). An important feature of site-specific music is therefore the lack of a clear boundary between the composition and the space. This is quite different from more conventional concert-hall situation: concert halls are designed for the purposes of the music, rather than the other way around.3 In some recent literature in sociology and anthropology, the term ‘place’ takes on a central role. Examples include Manuel Castells’ discussion of the Parisian suburb Belleville (1996, pp. 423–425), and particularly Marc Auge´’s (1996) discussion of what he calls non-places.4 In each case, a ‘place’ is marked by a strong connection to (personal) history, belonging, rootedness, and what in English would be called ‘local colour’. ‘Non-places’, logically, are lacking in this. We can see the distinction between places and non-places clearly if we contrast, say, a weekly market or a local pub with what Auge´ would term a transit space, such as an airport. For what colour springs to mind when we think of an airport? Perhaps something grey and non-distinct, or even transparency—the ultimate absence of colour, just as glass is the ultimate building material of postmodernity: see-through, and with only borrowed substance. Places often play an important role in Wandelweiser music, but in a quite different sense to the manner in which locations become a topic in site-specific music. For in the Wandelweiser case, there is rarely a conscious integration of acoustic, architectonic, or historical aspects of the location into the compositional process and the music that results. There is a tendency, however, towards choosing performance spaces with a stronger character than most concert venues, and likewise to resisting the form of the concert as well. This is far from unusual in experimental music, not least for pragmatic reasons: dilapidated churches generally come with lower costs attached than concert halls, and the projects I will discuss below are only some of the very many which made these and similar spaces the natural habitat of homo musicus experimentus in Berlin and elsewhere around this time. The characteristics of much Wandelweiser music do however mean that in this case particularly, our consciousness of the surrounding space is heightened. The spaces chosen are rarely empty, but instead full of their own character and by no means filled by the music. More often, it seems, the music lodges quietly in the room for a short period and carries out an almost incidental dialogue with it. The role of place in this music can go even further, however. Several performance projects by composers and musicians associated with the Wandelweiser group are
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based on the premise not of music written for a particular site, but of series of performances at regular intervals in specific performance spaces over a longer or shorter period of time. Shorter scale projects that conform to this model include a collaboration between Ju¨rg Frey and the late artist Mauser in the Kunstraum Du¨sseldorf in 2002, a project later documented in an edition produced by the Berlin gallery and performance space, complice.5 Many projects by the ensemble incidental music, whose core members include the composer Manfred Werder and the flautist Normisa Pereira da Silva, also favour the format of performances at set times over several days or weeks.6 The most consistent use of this approach can however be seen in two projects conceived and implemented by the composer Carlo Inderhees and the artist Christoph Nicolaus, namely garonne (24) fu¨r sich and 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur. garonne (24) fu¨r sich (1997) is a series of twenty-four pieces for cello (with the collective title fu¨r sich) to be performed—in any order—alongside a varying selection of videos from the series garonne by Christoph Nicolaus. The performances are to take place over the course of twenty-four days. Each piece lasts one hour, and the starting times of each performance progress by one hour on each consecutive day, starting at midnight: in other words, on the first day the performance begins at midnight, on the second day at 1 a.m., and so on until the final day, when the performance begins at 11 p.m. and concludes where the series started, at midnight. Each of the twenty-four pieces is based on the same principle: a single, complex multiphonic sound, which is different in each piece, is played for a total of thirty minutes, with the remaining thirty minutes consisting of a rest or rests. In each piece, sound and silence are interspersed at exactly regular, periodic intervals, these varying from piece to piece: in some pieces, every occurrence of the sound and every occurrence of the silence last one minute each, in other pieces ten minutes, and in some pieces a whole half an hour of sound is followed by a whole half an hour in which the cellist plays nothing at all. The video installations are selected from films made by Nicolaus of different rivers, the camera being placed directly over the river and remaining static for the duration. The videos therefore show nothing more than a continually flowing stream of water, without sound, and interrupted only by the occasional leaf, or duck. The first performance of garonne (24) fu¨r sich took place in the parish hall of the Sophienkirche in Berlin in the summer of 1998; further performances have, to date, taken place in Du¨sseldorf in 2001 and Munich in 2003. The project is closely related to another, entitled simply garonne . fu¨r sich, which contains exactly the same material (the cello pieces and the videos) but without the obligation to perform the pieces over twenty-four consecutive days—it is possible to play only one from the series. However, garonne . fu¨r sich too is a temporally and continuously progressing series, which started at midnight on the day of the first performance of garonne (24) fu¨r sich and is still running. When cellists wish to play from fu¨r sich, they can therefore pick any single day or any number of consecutive days, but the performance on the day chosen must start at the time that coincides with that particular day in the calendar.
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The second project by Inderhees and Nicolaus—which preceded garonne (24) fu¨r sich in its conception—is arguably both the most well-known and also the most influential. The influence of 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur is related to the scale and above all the duration of this project, which presented a unique social frame for a relatively small but heterogeneous community of listeners who, at one time or another, participated. In order to better understand the related roles of series and place in the work of the Wandelweiser group, there is therefore no better place to start than the parish church of Zion in central Berlin.
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Zionskirche There are at least two ways of introducing the project 3 years—156 musical events—1 sculpture. First, there are descriptions of the type I have used in several texts written on and around this project over the years:7 every Tuesday evening from the beginning of 1997 until the end of 1999, a ten-minute long musical event for one performer was premiered in the Zionskirche in Berlin. The performances took place beside a sculpture made up of ninety-six bore stones, the positions of two of which were swapped weekly (in advance of the performances) according to chance operations. These changes, as well as details of the performances, the number of visitors, the temperature in the church and the degree of sunlight, were documented by the organizers. Alternatively, there is this description, from the concept for the project as originally conceived by Inderhees and Nicolaus: Ein Zeitraum wird konstituiert durch regelma¨ßige Vera¨nderungen. Ein Ort wird konstituiert durch regelma¨ßige Vera¨nderungen. [A period of time is constituted through regular changes. A place is constituted through regular changes.]8
The documentation for the project goes into further detail as to how exactly this Zeitraum and Ort are to be constituted: Within a time period of three years, a sequence (Folge) is established. The elements in the succession each last 168 hours and succeed one another directly. At the beginning of each element in the succession there is an event of ten minutes’ duration. The 156 elements in the succession begin on Tuesdays at 19:30.
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M. J. Grant The period in which the succession is projected begins on 1.1.1997 and ends on the 31.12.1999.9
And:
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The place in which this succession is established is the Zionskirche in Berlin Mitte.
Despite the official title 3 Years—156 Musical Events—1 Sculpture, or perhaps because of its unwieldy nature, the project is often simply referred to by the name of the church in which it took place, and here as well I will refer to it simply as the Zionskirche project. The Zionskirche is a parish church built in the late nineteenth century and situated a short tram ride from the city centre, near the border between the districts of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Like many churches in east Berlin, in the late 1990s it was in a state of some disrepair; at the start of the project many of the windows were broken, making it subject to everything that the outside world could throw at it in terms of noise, weather and pigeon shit. Carlo Inderhees, who lives directly opposite, conceived of the project shortly after moving to Berlin and with the express intent of creating something for the place where he lived. None of Inderhees’ own music was performed there, however. Instead, the music—the events of ten minutes’ duration mentioned in the concept—came from a total of thirty-two composers from all over the world, including many composers directly associated with the Wandelweiser group (including Antoine Beuger, Ju¨rg Frey, Radu Malfatti, Michael Pisaro, Craig Shepard, Kunsu Shim and Manfred Werder).10 Amongst the others were many composers and musicians well-established on the Berlin new and experimental music scene and some newcomers: they included Christian Kesten, Juliane Klein, Klaus Lang, Makiko Nishikaze and Wolfgang von Schweinitz (the pieces from Schweinitz’s series bei nacht were played each Tuesday in November in each of the three years, the only occasion in the project that such a programmatic bundling of pieces by one composer took place). Many of the pieces performed in the Zionskirche were written specifically for the project—all were first performances— and some reacted directly to the performance space, particularly the second of the 3 Solostu¨cke fu¨r Zion by the Berlin-based Swedish composer and musician Sven-A˚ke Johansson, who integrated the windows of the church into the piece (he himself performed the piece on 4 May 1999). The pieces performed, and in many cases the composers who wrote them, were not determined in advance of the project, and in some cases composers approached Inderhees directly with pieces to be performed there when they heard about the weekly performances in the Zionskirche. Indeed, Inderhees ended up with more pieces for the project than could actually be performed in that context.11 Given the time frame specified—the project ran from the beginning of 1997 until the end of 1999—it is logical to ask what significance the approach of the year 2000 had for the concept. Although this was far from irrelevant, it is probably true to say that for the most regular of the participants, the end of the century gradually gained a
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different significance: it marked the end of the project, rather than vice versa. This is not to say that calendar time was irrelevant: on the contrary, the fixing of events according to the pre-ordained and artificial structures known as the clock and the calendar, and the fluctuations naturally occurring in more organic processes (such as daylight, temperature and human behaviour) when brought into line with these structures, were not only central for the project but what links it most directly, and on a very grand scale, with the music of the Wandelweiser group more generally. The temporal frame can be described in simplified form as representing ten minutes of sound—the performances—followed by 10,070 minutes in which no planned sound occurred, this succession then being repeated 155 times.12 This exactitude of durational structure, and the division into events and non-events at precise periodic intervals, is reminiscent not only of the structure of the music of fu¨r sich but of many other compositions by composers associated with the Wandelweiser group at that time, music in which, similarly, sound events are framed by rests or periods of silence which may be relatively long and are organized in line with a fixed time structure which applies to the whole piece or parts thereof and is often periodic in nature. Further characteristics include the fact that changes between events, if notated at all, occur on a very limited number of parameters, and that the music is generally very quiet, or one could say: unassuming. What is special about this aesthetic—and this approach to time and place—might become more apparent if we compare two pieces performed during the project by two composers closely linked to it, but whose music, despite similarities on some parameters, differs subtly but decisively on others. Both pieces are for solo flute, and both are taken from series of pieces, several pieces from each series having been performed in the Zionskirche during the three years. The fourth section of within (1) (1996) by Michael Pisaro was the first piece to be performed in the Zionskirche, on 7 January 1997. The other sections in the piece— there are six in total—were also performed there.13 This is in line with the instructions in the score, which notes that each section lasts ten minutes and that a performance can consist of any number of sections in any order. The score also notes that the individual sections can be separated by breaks or other pieces, and that ‘It is also possible to perform individual sections of the work on different days, as on different concerts in the same series’, which is what happened in this case. within (1) for flute is one in a series of pieces for several instruments: cello, guitar, accordion, trombone and clarinet. Several pieces from these other series were also performed during the Zionskirche project. Figure 1 shows the relevant page from the score and a further page, section 1, for comparison. Each notated pitch in the score represents what Pisaro terms ‘a very relaxed, hardly perceptible sound on the flute’; this sound ‘is a part of the space—imperceptible, but present’, and ‘The flutist does not strive to produce the sound, it is allowed to happen’. The number of sounds varies from section to section: definitive, however, is the regularity of their appearance within each section (every fifteen seconds: each section ends with a thirty-second rest) as well as the fact that events within each section simply
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recur. This regularity of structure is even more pronounced in many works by Antoine Beuger and Manfred Werder (and Inderhees himself), which set up an exactly recurring, serial-repetitive structure which does not vary throughout the piece. Compare this, then, to the type of form presented in Dramatische Studie Nr. 6 (1999) by Stefan Streich, a variant of which was performed by Normisa Pereira da Silva on July 20, 1999 (see Figure 2). Streich was one of the most regular visitors to the Zionskirche, had several pieces performed there, and for a time his music was also published by Wandelweiser-Verlag. His series of Dramatische Studien (Dramatic Studies) differs however in subtle but significant ways from the series composed by other, more long-standing Wandelweiser composers. What actually happens in Streich’s piece can be surmised more easily using the graphic representation in Figure 3, which in turn presents two ways of looking at the piece. The second divides the piece into segments each lasting thirty seconds, while the first—which incidentally more closely follows the layout of the score—divides it into segments of one minute each. This arrangement makes it clearer that Streich’s piece can perhaps best be understood as presenting two related, interlocking processes, each stage of each process lasting a total of thirty seconds, and taking the form of a progression from complete or almost complete equilibrium between sound and silence to a situation where silence outweighs sound by a ratio of 2:13 or 1:13, respectively. The second representation is closer to the impression on hearing the piece, since—due to the individual lengths of both sounds and silence, and the lack of consisting supporting factors on other parameters—it may not be at all obvious that we are dealing with two processes running, as it were, in parallel. The other three variants of the score differ in their pitch material, but the temporal processes are the same. The difference to the approach in Pisaro’s piece may not be immediately obvious, not least since in within (1) as well there are varying lengths of silence in each section. Nevertheless, even the title of Streich’s piece—Dramatische Studie—indicates this formal difference: for all that the title is to be taken with a pinch of salt, and for all that Streich’s piece displays much in common with other characteristics of Pisaro’s (quiet dynamic, unusual timbre, simple material), the form presented in Dramatische Studie Nr. 1 is very much an individual rather than a dividual form,14 and even a dramatic form, even if the drama which unfolds is extremely understated and is as much about the idea of dramatic form as it is such a form itself. By contrast, the score of within (1) states that ‘[n]o effort should be made to vary the sound. No effort should be made to keep it the same. The same process simply enacts itself every fifteen seconds.’ In many ways, this is exactly what happened over the three years of the project in the Zionskirche, as well. There too, we have a process that simply enacts itself, even if the pieces presented differed sometimes radically one from the other in content. Indeed, the 156 musical events in the Zionskirche present not only a microcosm of experimental music as made and experienced in Berlin in the late 1990s, but also an opportunity to explore in detail what connected and connects the Wandelweiser Figure 1 Michael Pisaro, within (1), sections 4 and 1.
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Figure 3 Stefan Streich, Dramatische Studie Nr. 6, Variant 1: two graphic representations. Coloured boxes represent sound and blank boxes rests.
composers to one another, what differentiates their aesthetic from other related developments and what is particular about each individual approach, including to the task of composing ten minutes of music for performance in the Zionskirche. For the present purposes, though, I will return to the focus on the relationship between the linked categories of series and place as demonstrated in this and similar undertakings. Series and Place When we observe the same thing again and again, there is no need to develop it: it develops itself. Or, as the artist Andy Goldsworthy once commented: ‘Change is best
Figure 2 Stefan Streich, Dramatische Studie Nr. 6, Variant 1. This is the version of the score available at the time of the project. The published version varies slightly in layout, but not content. The direction at the start of the score is for the flautist to play ‘very straight WHISTLE TONES’ throughout.
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understood by staying in the same place’.15 The same can be said of actions: do something repeatedly, and it becomes differentiated. Carry out a routine for long enough, and it becomes something else. Although there is a close connection between the Zionskirche as performance space and the music performed there, and although the Zionskirche formed the centre, the hub, of the project, there are important distinctions to be made between the role of place in the Zionskirche project and the manner in which locations function in other examples of site-specific music. Indeed, it may be better to describe the Zionskirche project as place-specific rather than site-specific. For place has a quality which need not be directly or intentionally affected by events which take place within it: the relationship between the two is discreet rather than direct. The real difference is that the dynamic relationship between a place and the music which takes place there is not so much a function of space as of time. Though most examples of site-specific music are also time-specific, in that they tend to be accessible for a limited period of time, this is in the majority of cases a by-product of the concept rather than its driving force.16 Though events within them may be temporary when viewed over the longer term, what makes a place a place are its non-temporary qualities, particularly that we return to it time and again. Places become places through a serial process: places are not one-off things, but arise from repetition. Place can, in this way, be seen as a natural consequence both of the use of series and of the reduced elements with which Wandelweiser composers work. In the former sense, the importance of place is connected to the role of time and repetition in this music. Performance series in the same place at set times reflect, on a macrostructural level, a typical ordering principle of Wandelweiser music, one which often directly reflects the compositional practices of the composers themselves (there are several examples of pieces composed according to a self-imposed regime of creating a certain amount of material each day).17 As well, the tendency towards sounds which are on the border of audibility, and to extensive periods in which no sound is produced, create a situation in which the place of performance, as it were, has a chance to shine through. This is not to suggest that the principles of series and place are always, or incontrovertibly, a factor in Wandelweiser music. The music of Ju¨rg Frey, and his reflections on the impact of the Zionskirche project on his work, is however an interesting case in point. If we compare Frey’s pieces with those of many other Wandelweiser composers performed in the course of the Zionskirche project, we notice that their form, while sometimes containing serial elements, is much more rounded than that of many of the others. On the macro-structural level, this is reflected in the fact that Frey for a long time tended to produce individual compositions rather than series of compositions. In response to a questionnaire given by Inderhees to several participants, Frey noted that he had previously resisted working in series, since he felt this manner of working tended too strongly towards mechanization. During the course of the Zionskirche project, and not least because of the ‘long and continuous working conditions’ it provided, he moved away from this
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position and began to write series of pieces as well: ‘Today, I see work in series as a possibility to express content and experiences that would not be possible in the usual context of a concert’ (Frey, 1999). Frey commented further:
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There are artistic ideas of which one presumes that they must always remain ideas, because they are too far removed from the habitual, too difficult to realize or because one has neither the energy nor the means to apply them. For this reason, they remain diffuse and vague, and are never realized. The Zionskirche project shows what can happen when one works on an idea for so long that it loses its vagueness, its diffuseness, and becomes reality. I have experienced how a project can unfold its potential in the course of time. It is a period which one can hardly imagine, because of its long duration. But you can compose this period. I saw the Zionskirche project as a composition on the grand scale, which has different parts and which is based on a concept which in itself has the possibility of lasting three years. (Frey, 1999; my translation)
Here, Frey is expressing in concrete terms a phenomenon also observed by the art historian Hannelore Paflik-Hubner (1997) in the context of an extensive study of the use of time in the contemporary visual arts. As she points out, much of the confusion and controversy which has surrounded time in philosophical discourse stems from the linguistic boundaries which necessarily infringe on any discourse; it is in part a problem with words, as Henri Bergson had also noted a century earlier. Artists, however, have the benefit of being able to work concretely with manifestations of time, and thus to come closer to the nature and significance of time for human experience than most verbal dialogue can. And as Thomas Reiner (2000) has noted, drawing on Wittgenstein but developing the idea specifically in relationship to music, time is in any case only manifest in the processes and in the signs which demonstrate its passing.18 Two series composed by Antoine Beuger and dedicated to Inderhees, called place and sound respectively, may help us explore a further facet of these distinctions and to reiterate another important difference between site-specific and place-specific music. The series place was composed in 1996–7, sound in 1997. Each series consists of a total of seventeen pieces for different solo instruments (including one for a singer and one for a speaker), each lasting ten minutes. Ten pieces from place and six from sound received their first performances in the Zionskirche. Common to both series is that there is one sound event every eight seconds (generally, the event lasts three seconds and is followed by eight seconds of silence). Common to both are also the fifty-five events in total notated in each piece in each series. The difference between sound and place lies in the temporal disposition of events within the ten minutes of each piece. In sound, the performer decides (using chance procedures if possible) how many of the fifty-five events are to be played: the minimum number allowed is twenty. The piece begins with the first event, and the remainder of the piece after the last event played is conducted in silence. In place, the performer also has to decide how many events are to be played, but also when the section with the events is to begin. In contrast to sound, nine different
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possibilities (based on the Fibonacci series) are given for the number of events that can be played: either one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four or fifty-five. Another and more important difference is that unlike sound, each piece in place does not automatically begin with the first sounding event. Instead, the performer also has to determine when the first event is to begin, and with which section of the score. The only restriction is that Beuger states the latest possible time for the first event depending on how many events in total are to be played (for example, if only one event is to be played, the latest point is 80 3200 ; if thirteen events are played, the latest point is 60 5600 ). In both sound and place, events are then played in the sequence they are given in the score; in the case of place, if the number of events to be played is greater than the events remaining in the section chosen, the performer simply proceeds from the beginning of the score after the last notated event is played. The difference, then, between sound and place (and it is tempting indeed to remove the italicization from the terms in question) lies in the different possibilities for articulating the ten minutes of the piece. Though the total number of scored events is the same in each case, most performances of place will consist of fewer events than most performances of sound. Moreover, in place the beginning of the piece in performance does not necessarily begin with the first event played. This of course raises the question—for the audience—of when the piece actually begins. In many ways, sound and place are illustrative of very many elements that are definitive for Wandelweiser music in this period, elements focused and documented in the structure of the Zionskirche project as a whole. The fact that the reservoir of sounding material is the same in each series emphasizes the centrality, to the concept, of the time frame as such, and in particular, how this is articulated through sound and non-sound. It is also perhaps worth stressing at this point what in practical terms actually happened during the Zionskirche project: Every Tuesday evening, people gathered to hear a single, ten-minute-long piece be performed. Starting point and finishing point of each of these 156 events were determined in advance, and although as a visitor to the project it never ceased to amaze me how often people left before even the ten minutes had elapsed, nevertheless a small but increasing number of visitors chose to participate regularly in this way. Many would then proceed to a cafe or bar, arguably as important an aspect of the proceedings as any other (and just about the only element not documented by Inderhees). This particular aspect of the project is as definitive as any other as a marker of the distinction between place and site in this context. For as not only the
Figure 4 Christoph Nicolaus, sculpture for the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur. Made of a total of ninety-six bore stones, it lay flat on the ground of the organ loft in the Zionskirche where the performances took place. Each week, the position of two of the larger or two of the smaller stones was exchanged. The three photographs show the sculpture in the weeks of 8, 15 and 25 April 1997.
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pieces by Beuger discussed above indicate, a musical performance is not simply the playing of particular musical sounds. It is a particular form of social activity that may, as in this case, take the form of no obvious activity at all. This is clearest of all in those moments where those present participate in that most rare of human activities: coming together and being still. This stillness, however, is coupled with awareness and attentiveness; something enters the room, namely, the piece. Performance means presence, and presence means place. In the final, official version of the project documentation, published in Spring of the year 2000, the statement of the project’s concept is quite different from the earlier version quoted previously:
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Ein Zeitraum wird durch a¨quidistante Modifikationen. Ein Ort wird durch a¨quidistante Modifikationen.
There are two main differences here: first, ‘regular changes’ have been been replaced by the even more quantified ‘equidistant modifications’; more significantly, the verb werden is no longer passive (something which is done, created), but intransitive (something which is, becomes, and in this case, has become). The final documentation also contains lists of the dates, composers, number of visitors, time of sunset, temperature in the church; the name of the pieces, the performers and their instruments; and a note of the changes made to the sculpture, for each Tuesday of the project. It also contains a photograph of the sculpture. The sculpture was a constant companion over the three years of the project. Its exact position on the floor of the empty organ loft where the performances took place changed slightly over the time period, for external reasons. Every week, the sculpture itself was subject to equidistant modifications, the two stones which changed places being communicated to Inderhees each week by postcard. What exactly had changed was however practically impossible to discern even for the initiated (and the reader may choose to try, too, to figure out the difference between the three versions of the sculpture presented in the photographs in Figure 4). In a way, the sculpture thus reflects one of the most important aspects of the Zionskirche project in its micro-structure and in its macro-structure: that change had occurred, most acknowledged; what the change was exactly, hardly anyone could say; when and how this change had occurred, also remained unclear. Perhaps the nearest we can come to describing, in language, what actually happened, comes in the closing lines of one of two poems by Emily Dickinson referred to by Beuger in the score introduction to the series place: At half past Seven, Element Nor implement, be seen— And Place was where the Presence was Circumference between.
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[2]
[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
[9]
See, for example, Coplans (1968, pp. 34–35): ‘Serial imagery is a type of repeated form or structure shared equally by each work in a group of related works made by one artist [. . .] Neither the number of works nor the similarity of theme in a given structure determines whether a painting or sculpture is serial. Rather, seriality is identified by a particular relationship, rigorously consistent, of structure and syntax: serial structures are produced by a single indivisible process that links the internal structure of a work to that of other works within a differentiated whole’. According to Mel Bochner (1967, pp. 28– 33), ‘serial’ describes a form in which the order of the elements is more important than how they are executed; he also suggests that ‘repetition of a standard unit’ is typical. His examples include the early animal photography of Edmund Muybridge and the works of Andy Warhol. For a discussion of the differences but also points of contact between serielle Musik and serial art in the 1950s and 1950s, see chapter 6 of Grant (2001, pp. 164–189). I realize that using the term ‘music’ to describe many manifestations of this phenomenon is open to discussion. I continue to prefer this as an umbrella term to describe things that are, nevertheless, closely related historically and culturally. It hopefully goes without saying that my own definition of music is wide. It is also my firm belief that theoretical and philosophical approaches to music have to adapt to different forms of musical practice in different eras and cultures and not vice versa. Or at least, they are composed for a particular type of music and what it (re-)presents. In my own research, I have used the German edition of this work: Auge´, M. (2011). NichtOrte (M. Bischoff, Trans.). Munich: Beck. For more information on complice and the edition, see http://www.e-complice.de. Retrieved 17 August 2011. For more information and a project archive, see http://incidentalmusicprojects-archives. blogspot.com/. Retrieved 26 August 2011. For example, in a paper presented in the year 2001 at the Second Biennial Conference on Music in the Twentieth Century which is one of the sources for this article. Note on the translation: the German verb ‘werden’, third person present tense ‘wird’, does not mean ‘is’ but ‘becomes’ or ‘is made to be so’. This is important when we compare this version of the concept text—from the version of the documentation issued in September 1999—to the final version, discussed towards the end of this article. The German text reads as follows:
In einem Zeitraum von drei Jahren wird eine Folge etabliert. Die Folgenglieder dauern jeweils 168 Stunden und schließen unmittelbar aneinander an. Am Beginn eines jeden Folgengliedes steht ein Ereignis von zehn Minuten Dauer. Die 156 Folgenglieder beginnen dienstags um 19:30 Uhr. Der Zeitraum, in den die Folge projiziert wird, beginnt am 1.1.1997 und endet am 31.12.1999. [. . .] Der Ort, an dem diese Folge etabliert wird, ist die Zionskirche in Berlin Mitte. This is the text as it appeared in the final documentation of the project and differs in some details from earlier versions produced during the project itself. [10] Kunsu Shim was one of the original Wandelweiser but now publishes his music elsewhere. For more information on the origins of the Wandelweiser group, see Pisaro (2009).
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[11] Most of the material from the project, including the pieces originally performed there and other pieces that were not, is now in my possession. [12] The only exception to this is the week beginning 7 July 1998, when due to unforeseen circumstances no piece was performed. The church was however opened as usual, changes made to the sculpture as in every other week and thirteen people attended. In the final version of the documentation, references to this non-performance are given in italics. [13] Namely within (1) 2 on 6 May 1997, within (1) 3 on 3 June 1997, within (1) 6 on 16 December 1998, within (1) 1 on 28 July 1998 and within (1) 5 on 16 February 1999; all were performed by Normisa Pereira da Silva. [14] In the sense of Paul Klee’s distinction between dividual and individual form: the latter indicates a form in which each constituent element is important for the whole, whereas in the case of dividual form the absence of one element does not destroy the form of the whole. See also the discussion of Antoine Beuger’s series sound and place, at the end of this article. [15] Comment made during a discussion following a screening of the film Rivers and Tides about Goldsworthy’s work at the Berlin Film Festival, February 2002. [16] For a discussion of this aspect of site-specific art, see Powers (2009). [17] For example, pieces by Antoine Beuger, Craig Shepard and Manfred Werder have arisen in this way, the composer setting themselves the task of composing a set amount of material (a tune, a piece and a page of a piece) each day. [18] My thanks to Jochem Valkenburg for drawing my attention to this text.
References Auge´, M. (1996). Non-Lieux. Introduction a` une anthropologie de la surmodernite´. Paris: E´ditions du Seuil. Bochner, M. (1967). The Serial Attitude. Artforum, 6, 28–33. Castells, M. (1996). The information age: Economy, society, and culture, Vol. 1: The rise of the network society. First edition. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Coplans, J. (1968). Serial imagery. Artforum, 8, 34–43. Frey, J. (1999). Response to questionnaire on the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur formulated by Carlo Inderhees. Unpublished manuscript. Grant, M. J. (2001). Serial music, serial aesthetics: compositional theory in post-war Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paflik-Hubner, H. (1997). Kunst und Zeit: Zeitmodelle in der Gegenwartskunst. Munich: scaneg. Pisaro, M. (2009). Wandelweiser. Erstwords. Retrieved 28 August 2011, from http://erstwords. blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html and http://www.wandelweiser.de. Powers, J. S. (2009). Temporary art and public place: Comparing Berlin with Los Angeles. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Reiners, T. (2000). Semiotics of musical time. New York: Peter Lang.