A meditation on composing while doing nothing
Everybody has a song which is no song at all: it is a process of singing, and when you sing, you are where you are. All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that I know nothing.
John Cage (Larson, 2012: 239)
As a composer of opera I work with the complex interface between music and image. It is difficult to tell a story without being too oblique or too obvious. Often abstract concepts work better from a composing point of view. Over-clarity of story telling has the ability to create banality. Therefore as a syncretic medium, opera lends itself to making connections between unclear complexities. These can then be expressed in non-verbally reasoned ways though music, sound and image. The result can subliminally allow us as audience to draw on the unexplored depths of our imagination.
During my doctoral research I developed a compositional methodology called quilting. From quilting flowed many compositional possibilities which I continue to develop since I completed my research Opera Quilt Song. In particular materials can be organically developed, cross-related, juxtaposed, jumbled up and transformed. Resonances with this approach can be seen via the iconic artist Robert Rauschenberg's art practice in which he observes
During my doctoral research I developed a compositional methodology called quilting. From quilting flowed many compositional possibilities which I continue to develop since I completed my research Opera Quilt Song. In particular materials can be organically developed, cross-related, juxtaposed, jumbled up and transformed. Resonances with this approach can be seen via the iconic artist Robert Rauschenberg's art practice in which he observes
Objects not only suggest new possibilities - they also set up resistances that I find very useful.
(Rauschenberg, 2017: 235)
During lockdown I am allowing myself to engage with a state of creative unwrapping so that I specifically choose not to seek a goal, purpose or result. I am opening myself up to infinite space and time. I have long dreamed of an extended residency that was similar to a Tibetan Buddhist retreat where a meditative state is engaged with for up to 5 years. During my retreat which contain operatic elements but which are also reflective, enlivening, provocative and meditative. This practice is an extension of the installations that I created for Quilt Song. These worked in contrast to the clearly drawn story-telling scenes so that their abstraction could allow for reflection. It is now the quality of the abstract internal that I feel drawn to develop.
My inspiration comes from an eclectic range of installation artists like Ed Kienholz, Nancy Reddich, Robert Lepage, Bill Viola and Zimoun. Their use of visual objects is then connected to the philosophical aural by my fascination with John Cage. In particular I am drawn to Cage's interest in Zen Buddism. This quality then cross-hatches with my interest in compositional minimalism. In particular I admire Steve Reich's Eight Lines which dances with nuanced eddies of cross-rhythms and John Adam's formative work Light over Water which, created with synthesisers, achieves a minimalist purity that his later orchestral works move away from.
In The Flow grew out of the concept of 'the infinitude of dust', as explained by the Zen Buddhist Suzuki who greatly influenced Cage.
Existentially viewed, every particular object, technically called "particle of dust": (anuraja), contains in it the whole Dharmadhatu [pure Mind realm]. Suzuki (Larson, 2012: 249 )
In addition Cage's work with the dancer Merce Cunningham promoted the idea that works of composition and choreography have permission to be chaotic and driven by chance impulses. The choreographer Jonathan Burrows goes on to contextualise this concept by saying:
My inspiration comes from an eclectic range of installation artists like Ed Kienholz, Nancy Reddich, Robert Lepage, Bill Viola and Zimoun. Their use of visual objects is then connected to the philosophical aural by my fascination with John Cage. In particular I am drawn to Cage's interest in Zen Buddism. This quality then cross-hatches with my interest in compositional minimalism. In particular I admire Steve Reich's Eight Lines which dances with nuanced eddies of cross-rhythms and John Adam's formative work Light over Water which, created with synthesisers, achieves a minimalist purity that his later orchestral works move away from.
John Cage was also instrumental in making me comfortable and in tune with new technology. His playful yet disciplined approach to objects of twentieth-century life like radios, loudspeakers, microphones, tape-recorders and even computers had for me the effect of empowerment. He gave me the courage to see technology as fertile terrain for creativity.
(Adams, quoted in Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008: 20–24)
Click on the link to see In the Flow 10'
In addition Cage's work with the dancer Merce Cunningham promoted the idea that works of composition and choreography have permission to be chaotic and driven by chance impulses. The choreographer Jonathan Burrows goes on to contextualise this concept by saying:
When a piece makes sense to us it appears to reach a point where we would accept anything that happens. The continuity of unfolding objects has set up a series of clues which teach us how to read, anticipate, recognise and be surprised by what follows.
(Burrows, 2010: 37)
For In the Flow I actively disrupt synthetic set patterns available within the programmes of Logic Pro. Starting with interlacing bells a Zen-like stasis is set up of cascading cross rhythms which are generated by the plug-in Zen Garden. The video simultaneously features close-ups of lily pads and reeds in water. Dancing on, and in, the water are tiny insects and refracted light. Using a negative visual filter I reflect the pulsating dance of the light on the water with disrupted cross rhythms using the plug-in Splatter Cycles. These morph into further complexities using the gorgeously named Gnarly Trance Pluck. The video intensifies its colours to a numinous rippling pink. Transformation of sound then arrives with Quantiser Patterns, Celestial Voices and me panting shamanically into the microphone. This new raw energy is reflected in dynamic footage of rolling waves which culminate aurally in a cascade of Splatter Cycles. From this energetic movement emerges the solemn Studio Strings who play the tones embodied in the work so far. Now the installation becomes a deep reflective meditation as the orange filtered images of the encroaching tide slowly fade out.
Bibliography
Adams, J. (2008) Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Burrows, J. (2010) A Choreographers Handbook. London: Routledge.
Kienholz, E. and Reddin, N. (2002) The Hoerengracht. New York: Pace Wildenstein.
Larson, K. (2012) Where the Heart Beats. New York: The Penguin Press.
Rauschenberg, R. (2017) Exhibition catalogue. London: Tate Publishing.
Reich, S. (2002) Writings on Music, 1965-2000. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Self, S. (2018) Quilt Song [opera]. London: Composers Edition.
Discography
Adams, J. (1986) Shaker Loops; Light over water [CD]. Eindhoven: (Philips NA014CD).
Lepage, R. (2010) “Tristan and Isolde” – Behind the Scenes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYN4gSwaaw&list=PL1FD0A02114471FC2&index=34
[accessed 6th September, 2017]
Zimoun (n.d.) website http://www.zimoun.net
[accessed 29th October, 2016]
6 comments:
Wonderful Susie, Thank you. I particularly loved the first half, blue/pink.
Carol Martin-Sperry Fellow BACP
Dear Susie,
Thank you so much for sending me the link to your experimental installation, the flow. I enjoyed it so much, especially in light of the fact that I’ve been doing a weeklong splurge of contemporary dance films featuring the choreography of Jiri Kylian of the Nederlands dans theater. Kylian uses a lot of music by Steve Reich and John Cage, and I was imagining the unfurling motion of human dancers across the screen as I watched the nature images of your film!
Your quoting of Suzuki was just perfect and really allowed me to see through the structure towards the goal, as I imagine it, of your creative exploration.
It also reminded me of my favorite quote from James Joyce in his great narrative Ulysses where, at the bar, staring at a bottle of Bass ale, Bloom’s friend remarks: “Any object, intensely regarded, may become a gate of access to the incorruptible eons of the gods.“
Which, of course, reminds me of Joseph Campbell‘s magnificent quote: “Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.“
And we mustn’t leave out William Blake’s brilliant Zen moment of realization that one may “see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower; Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.“
All of these ideas were moving through my mind as I listened and watched your installation!
Rebecca Armstrong
Dear Susie. Thank you for your boundless creativity which is thriving if not even more abundantly during this pandemic. Your video Flow is so beautiful - both the images and the soundscape. I never cease to be amazed at how you are constantly creating, experimenting and playing with music, sound, imagery, light etc. With huge admiration from Canada. Adrianne Pieczonka
What a wonderful world of sound and images you created.
It's so inspiring especially in the time we're experiencing ,but what I like is that there is so muich tension in it - and as you mention it draws you in imagination - well done.
Guy Coolen
director Operadagen Rotterdam
Dear Susie,
This is wonderful example of a lovely way of working: combining visuals and music with great sensitivity. Your sensitivity to the underlying rhythms - sometimes implicit - is what makes it fascinating. That links very nicely with the techniques of Cage (and others)whom you cite as influences. It's beautifully done and very satisfying.
Andrew Lovett
In her installation piece 'In the Flow', Susannah Self handles chaos like a painter wielding a Japanese watercolor brush. Impulse and inspiration are somehow guided by Ms. Self's innate sense of form and narrative arc. The result is an experience that is mesmerizing and compelling. By seducing our senses with a filtered and heightened version of reality and then refusing to provide the observer with any predictable, familiar audio/visual landmarks, Ms. Self has created a piece that is both oddly unsettling and calming at the same time. Inexplicably, I find myself energized and relaxed. More please!
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