Dear art lover: if you are near Potsdam (Germany) next weekend, here is an art tip: UNPAINTED artist Claudia Robles Angel is part of the FESTIVAL INTERSONANZEN in Potsdam under the motto “experiment:.:listen” – experiment and tradition in new music of the 21st century. Experience the audiovisual installation BEETHOVEN’S SPIRIT and attend a concert in which Claudia’s acoustic piece WANDERING IN MORELIA will be shown:
The interdisciplinary installation BEETHOVENS GEIST (Beethoven’s Spirit) invites you to immerse yourself in a room. It consists of colored shadows and a special way of hearing its sound.
In addition, the installation takes Beethoven as a source of inspiration, with visitors taking Beethoven as a citizen of Bonn, the sound artist, the humanist, the visionary and the nature lover from the innermost parts of his mind. The following premises play a very important role:
- That for Beethoven the values of freedom, equality and fraternity were not only very deeply anchored in his life, but also in his music, because for him life and art were humanistic values. His contemporaries also play a role in the installation (e.B. Goethe, with words and coloured shadows).
- Beethoven’s inner world and spirit, especially with regard to his deafness.
The installation consists of two elements:
1. A electroacoustic composition (fixed media), which is listened to in the installation via bone-permeable headphones:
2. Colored shadows
The electroacoustic composition confronts visitors not only with Beethoven’s music and ideals, but also with his way of dealing with such a situation as a deaf composer. Various aspects of Beethoven’s life can be experienced through audio, e.B. his music, the words of his contemporaries, etc. In addition to sections with his music, there are also walks in various
Places where sometimes the external environment can be heard, but sometimes only Beethoven can be heard inside. Particularly decisive in the piece are the words “Does it have to be? It has to be, it has to be! ” (“Does it have to be? It has to be, it has to be!”) which Beethoven wrote about the score of his string quartet Opus 135 (Grave). While the reason Beethoven added these words
it is not entirely clear, they are used in different situations as a leitmotif with other musical excerpts from Beethoven’s work, space for many different interpretations. Although most of the musical quotes here come from Beethoven’s compositions, there are also excerpts from Haydn and Mozart that Beethoven certainly heard in his youth. To this end, quotations from Beethoven’s works are transformed with various sound effects representing his hearing impairment.
In addition, it is known that Beethoven found a way to perceive sound that his piano connected to his jawbone through a rod that he bit with his teeth. This procedure made it possible to feel the vibrations of the piano through its jawbones, which is known as the principle of bone conduction. As a result, the composition can only be done through special headphones that work on the principle of bone conduction. Also known as bone conduction, bone conduction refers to the transmission of vibrations through the skull bone that surrounds the organ of hearing (near the middle ear), with the
The perception is masked by the signals, which are transmitted as airborne sound due to the high sound wave resistance of the skull bone.
The piece is about 45 minutes long and consists of 19 successively composed sections:
(1) Introduction; (2) Promenade I; (3) Mozart, Haydn; (4) Promenade II: Bells, Water – Hearing Disorders I; (5) Goethe: Mephisto’s Flea
(Goethe’s poem, song by Beethoven); (6) Promenade III: Horse-drawn carriage – hearing disorders II; (7) Cello Sonata in A; (8) Promenade IV: birds;
(9) PASTORAL Symphony: II Movement – Scene by the Stream; (10) Does it have to be? (11) Musical Creation I; (12) Promenade V: Birds (Filters);
(13) To The Distant Beloved; (14) Promenade VI: Birds (Filter) II; (15) Musical Creation II: Filter; (16) Promenade VII:
Hall/Filters/Horses/Delays; (17) Musical Creation III: Filter; (18) DEAFNESS: Low frequencies; (19) Final.
The colored shadows in the room are inspired by Goethe’s color theory (Beethoven’s contemporary), which focuses on elementary and polar opposites of light and dark, which give the installation a unique colorfulness.
Opening: August 19, 2021, 7:00 pm
Exhibition duration: 19 to 23 August 2021, 4 to 7 pm
Location: Kunsthaus Sans Titre, Französische Str.18, D 14467 Potsdam
More info
You must be logged in to post a comment.