Racer

Klejs & Rønsholdt Racer (2011) for string quartet, audio playback, video and objects Dur. 11’

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Klejs & Rønsholdt Racer (2011) for string quartet, audio playback, video and objects Dur. 11’

NOTE Racer is a preliminary study for the spectacular work LoveRacer. The work is the most personal and autobiographical work from the duo so far. Klejs & Rønsholdt explain: “Love is a racing car, and all through life we struggle to control the pumping horse power.”

Racer is an aesthetic examination of the wish to have full access to the mind, thoughts and feelings of the beloved.

SUMMARY LoveRacer is a live performance by Klejs & Rønsholdt for ensemble, electronics and video. After having created numerous successful installation/music theatre pieces Klejs & Rønsholdt step up on stage to perform together for the first time. LoveRacer is a wild, pumping, high-speed piece from the engine room of love - an aestheticized view on the wish for complete access to the mind, thoughts and dreams of the loved one. The two performers have been running through both city and forest with what they call a camcluster: 4 handycams each positioned in a different direction so as to cover a 360º view. On stage Klejs & Rønsholdt work live, directing cameras and microphones on motor-like constructions and each other’s bodies while the ensemble plays music created on the basis of brightness and colour tracking in the prerecorded video sequences.

LOVE IS A RACING CAR LoveRacer is a live-show for live ensemble, electronic sound and 4 channel video by Klejs & Rønsholdt. It is the first time that Signe Klejs & Niels Rønsholdt step up onto the stage together. A common thread in Klejs & Rønsholdt’s works is a subtle autobiographical undertone, which is here unfolded in their most explicitly personal work to date. Love is a wild racing car and throughout life we fall in and out of control of the pumping horsepower. LoveRacer investigates this fact and unfolds it in an aestheticized form. Klejs & Rønsholdt have placed themselves behind the wheel of the LoveRacer and it’s going to get fast!

The person unwrapped When one makes a map of the world the globe is unfolded onto a two dimensional plane in order for us to see everything from a single point of view. People circle around one another in the same way. Love awakes the wish to bare it all out so that everything is visible. In LoveRacer this drive is transformed into the visual and musical foundation of the work: In prerecorded video sequences from various locations Klejs & Rønsholdt use a camcluster that consists of 4 cameras that each record in their own direction, collectively covering a full 360º overall angle of view. The cameras are fastened to one another so that movements in the handheld cameras are 100% in sync. It is a very special experience to see the world - the city, forest, bodies - pass by at high speed through four eyes each pointing in its own direction. We all like to drive fast but as speed increases we loose the ability to maintain a calm gaze: The head shakes and moves in a specific way as one speeds through forest or town - and it is this repetitive shaking and pulsating that forms the foundation for the musical beats and instrumental structures: light intensity and colour are tracked and transformed into musical

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information: the tempo of a red traffic light’s repetitive, hectic back and forth on the video picture is directly translated into bowing marks, trombone slides or breathing in and out. In this way the music is choreographed rather than composed and new, different instrumental gestures and sounds are created through the close integration of video and sound.

LoveRacer’s expression is as wild, chaotic and thundering as love itself is. On the stage Klejs & Rønsholdt work as performers in the machine room of love where the motor is constantly held in motion via both machines and bodily interaction. As the musicians work and on and with their instruments a process is unfolded that is both mechanical and corporal, trembling, soft and hard. The musicians generate sound on their instruments via a virtuosic choreography of playing gestures that are directly derived from the special video technique while at the same time Klejs & Rønsholdt work with cameras and microphones directed on objects, mechanical constructions and one another’s bodies. And all of this is combined with pre-recorded video and electronic sound which is thrown in and mixed with the pulsating real-time.

Preliminary stage and light

Preliminary stage and light setup: setup illustration

by Klejs & Rønsholdt

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4 hanging screens with front or back projection: screen 2

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screen 1

screen 4

Podium - 2 performers and objects musicians 1-4

musicians 4-8

objects

objects