On The Influence of The Performance Space, Three Case Studies: Three Case Studies:

The composition takes its full shape during the performance, in terms of

resonance with respect to each performance space of diffusion. The resonance of sound to space is a complex relation, including the reception and memory of the listener:

All the sound presence is so made of complex returns, whose knotting is the resonance or the ‘sounding’ of the sound, expression that one must hear – hearing and listening – as well on the side of the sound itself, or its emission, as on the side of its reception or listening: it is indeed from one to the other that it sounds.²⁹ (Nancy 2002: 52)

The influence of the performance spaces is highlighted through the following points:

29 ‘Toute la présence sonore est ainsi faite d’un complexe de renvois dont le nouage est la résonance ou la « sonnance » du son, expression que l’on doit entendre – entendre et écouter – aussi bien du côté du son lui-même, ou de son émission, que du côté de sa réception ou de son écoute: c’est justement de l’une à l’autre qu’il sonne.^’

• The composer experiences the resonance of the performance space while diffusing sounds and creates a live loop feedback, an intention and reception/perception at the same time, which Gibson proposes as

follows:

Instead of supposing that the brain constructs or computes the objective information from a kaleidoscopic inflow of sensations, we may suppose that the orienting of the organs of perception is governed by the brain so that the whole system of input and output resonates to the external information. (Gibson 1966: 5)

The resonance of the performance space with the sound (as input) is interpreted by the composer and then re-injected (as output) by playing with the diffusion of sound and the resonance. The perception therefore resonates with the performance space;

• The composition changes according to the space and is therefore always different;

• The perception of the performance space’s architecture changes according to the sound in the mind of the audience, while listening with eyes closed in order to focus on sound and mental imagery. As a movie for the ears.

Although De Rerum Natura includes sounds already composed in the Amazon rainforest³⁰ and intrinsically site-specific, site-specificity resides in the intention to decontextualise and deterritorialise the space, sound and environment of the Amazon rainforest, then to reterritorialise these in the performance space where the sonic properties of the architecture will respond to ‘iconoclastic’ material from the rainforest. As a comparison with space, sound and colour, Cendrars mentions that:

A colour is not a colour in itself. It is a colour only in contrast with one or more colours.³¹ (Cendrars 1960: 192)

The underlined contrast stated by Cendrars resides in De Rerum Natura through these categories:

• Amazonian recorded sounds and the contrast between them within the composition;³²

• The sound composition and its projection into the performance space and how it illuminates the space (or not);

• The contrast as the subjective reception of each listener: The relation between what is heard and what is imagined, as proposed by Gibson and Pick:

Humans, however, have minds that contain mental representations, images, thoughts, and concepts, inner structures that are not observable to the outsider and that direct and intervene in behaviour. (Gibson and Pick 2003:

4)

A language needs to develop in order to make the work understood by the audience, a language that allows the listener to understand the music without being an expert in new music. Dusman says that ‘each identification of a

cadence reifies that there is some thing to know about this music, that there are some fundamental truths about music that are the experiencing of music’

(Dusman 1994: 137).

Why is space included among those things that are illegible? Well, because of its nonroughness. Without separability, there is no extension, no distance. The space of the universe would find itself condensed into a mathematical point without dimensions. Indeed, Parmenides Being, which fills all space and eternity, would be nothing but an absolutely smooth ‘mathematical point’.

(Xenakis and Brown 1989: 88)

31 ‘Une couleur n’est pas une couleur en soi. Elle n’est couleur qu’en contraste avec une ou plusieurs autres couleurs.’

32 The sounds from different situations (open spaces, underwater, and into the jungle) are put together in layers. It gives rise to an artificial space.

Following the Xenakis metaphor, a difficulty arises in a representational space.

How to transform the performance space? How to change the perception of the performance space by the audience? What is the influence of the performance space on the performance of the piece?

De Rerum Natura investigates the notion of embodiment of the performance space by the perception of sound through the body. Three case studies are proposed for different settings for the audience and with different acoustic strategies:

a) Galpao Cine Orto, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Concert on 21 August 2009.

The Galpao Cine Orto is an old cinema from the 1920s transformed into a theatre. The audience sits in front of the proscenium. There is no light during the performance. The set-up includes two microphones positioned on the sides of the venue (left and right) in order to capture the room’s sound live and to send it back to the PA system (controlled by the composer), creating a loop feedback. Thus, the performance space is integrated live into the composition.

The PA is a quadraphonic system: two loudspeakers are at the front, and two rear loudspeakers sit behind the audience.

Fig. 3.2.4 Galpao Cine Orto, view from stage

While the side microphones capture the sound, the audience experiences a double perception of the performance space: the first is the illumination of the space by the diffusion of the composition, which the side microphones capture then subsequently re-inject into the performance space, with a small delay, through the rear loudspeakers, for the second perception.

b) Le Bourg, Lausanne, Switzerland Concert on 13 November 2009.

Le Bourg is an old cinema transformed into a concert venue. Its main difference from the Galpao Cine Orto theatre lies in Le Bourg’s absorption of sound by a layer of carpet on the walls. The audience sits on chairs and sofas. There is no light during the performance, apart from candles on a table. The PA is stereo, controlled by a sound engineer. The basses from the composition (sixty Hz on the PA) are pushed to their limit. Then, the structure of the building vibrates, creating an embodiment of the sound and the space for the audience. The sound of the vibrations is perceptible on the recording, and thus supports this theoretical writing.

Fig. 3.2.5 Le Bourg, view from above

Fig. 3.2.6 Le Bourg, view from the audience

c) Museum of Fine Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland Concert on 14 November 2009.

The performance space is a room in the museum, a square of twenty metres

audience with eight loudspeakers in a circle and two subwoofers. The performer stands at the centre of the circle. During the concert the audience is immersed in full darkness. The surrounding system and the resonant properties of the room create an embodiment of the sound.

Fig. 3.2.7 Museum of Fine Arts, panoramic view of the room (Pfiffner)

Fig. 3.2.8 Museum of Fine Arts, view of the room with deck chairs (Pfiffner)

3.2.3. Composition

The first traces of the composition emerged in the composer’s mind while he was soundwalking in the rainforest and during recording sessions while deep listening. The Amazon rainforest is so remote that

telecommunications are impossible, thus one concentrates only on the recording task and with absolute dedication. The dedication is so intense that the sounds are deeply engraved into the mind. The powerful images created by the sonic environment while recording create the first mental

images for the composer. Those are the seeds of the composition and the initial dramaturgy. Here are a few examples:

• The dolphins recorded with the hydrophones;

• The bats recorded with ultrasonic microphones;

• The frogs recorded during the night;

• The tension while walking into the rainforest and avoiding snakes;

• Deep listening to the rainforest while recording;

• The multiple eyes in the dark illuminated by the torch, which are those of alligators.

De Rerum Natura exists once it is diffused and when the sounds

dynamically incorporate the performance space each time the composition is presented, in line with Windsor’s proposal:

The motivation for adopting an ecological approach in this context is to redress the balance between abstract approach to musical

structures and those that take into account the connections between sounds and the environment that produces them. (Windsor in

Emmerson 2003: 13)

Accordingly, Ligeti reinforces this vision by comparing the composition to a picture, and by suggesting that the nature of the relation of sound and space is similar to that of colours and surfaces:

That is the seeming conversation of temporal relations into spatial ones. The course of the form is no longer experienced as a ’process of congestion and relaxation, but as a juxtaposition of colors and surfaces, just as in a picture. (Ligeti 1975: 15)

De Rerum Natura is precisely the result of a first deterritorialisation of the sonic environment from the Amazon rainforest into the composer’s mind, and reterritorialised into the performance space as for the moiré example proposed in Section 3.2.1.1. It relates to the picture proposed by Ligeti as the juxtaposition of colours and surfaces, in which, in the current examples,

soundscapes are projected into the performance space; their juxtaposition leads to the moiré pattern.

The idea of manipulating such already rich material is to register the presence of the composer through a reappropriation and a

reterritorialisation of the sound, both live and in a studio,³³ in addition to the diffusion strategies as mentioned in Section 3.2.2.3.

De Rerum Natura includes Emmerson’s grid issues on abstracted syntax, and a combination of aural and mimetic discourse (Emmerson in

McCartney 2000: 11 and Truax 2002: 7). The combination includes field recordings and manipulation of rich material from the rainforest.³⁴

Hence, the natural soundscape may even appear as industrial machinery after manipulation (according to the data questionnaire from the current research in Section 5.2.2.).

There is a shift from a lofi (urban) and hifi (nature) categorisation (Schafer in Cox and Warner 2004: 29-38)  to a broader notion evoking multiple possible fields of interpretation and listening.

The recording strategies, the classification and the live manipulation of the material in the performance space, as well as the technology that allows the manipulation of big sections of material live, lead to an evolution of a language and form of soundscape composition.