[Leonard-Stage] present assignment

[Neil Leonard]

Hello Class,

Over the next few days I would like you to use this discussion thread  
to define, groups, concertps and sites for your final presentation.

The ideas that emerged in yesterday’s discussion were a good start  
but be have a lot of hard work and thinking ahead of us if these  
projects are going to become “anything more than a college exercise.”

NUMBER OF INSTALLATIONS:

ASSIGNMENT: Over the next 48 hours you must commit to a group of  
people to work with.

I am going to request that you form no more than three groups. We  
really do not have time to discuss more than three installations. One  
or two installations would be even better. Think about pooling ideas  
and skills to make these projects as striking as possible.

THEME OF INSTALLATIONS:

ASSIGNMENT: By the next class, each group should select a prevailing  
theme for the installation. This will be the idea that is listened  
to. With Lucier it was process – text being degraded by controlled  
feedback. Cardiff’s idea was personal narrative – non-linear story  
telling using a traveling disembodied voice. With David Tutor is was  
finding the composition inside dymamic electronic media.

SOUND SYSTEM:

ASSIGNMENT: Define your sound system by next class.

Plan on using portable sound systems that we own. Access to electricy  
seems dubious and setting up a serious sound system makes any kind of  
impromptu event difficult to stage.

If you are going to use an accademically controlled space (U of P or  
Pollini), then the Conservatory has a state of the art quadrophonic  
sound system that we can use. If we use an accademically controlled  
space, I can make the first call to Prof. Durante or Prof.  
Bernardini, but I need to know what this space is in the next 48 hours.

LOCATION:

ASSIGNMENT: By next class, your group must have choosen a site for  
the installation. If you like you can propose one site that we will  
use now, and a seconday dream site that we could use if we do this  
again in the future.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Professor Nicola Bernardini wrote this note to Marco Braggion and I  
will quote it at length because I could not say it better:

“… in order to be really convincing on something like this it is  
necessary to focus really strongly on the meaning complex that you  
want to provide. Otherwise it is something that does’nt reach the  
emotional level necessary to raise whatever you want raise (fear,  
anger, disgust, sadism, voyeurism or whatever). I would'nt know how  
to proceed for this, but maybe you do.”

“… I think that here too a lot of work has to be done for any of  
these projects to really take off and not stay at the level of  
college excercise.”

“The difference is in the details. I'll take just the first one as an  
example: how is the car? Is it an old seicento or is it something  
fancy? is it a recording or is it a human? does the car have anything  
pasted on its body (like the spot cars have generally) or not? do you  
distribute hands out from the car running slowly around? and also:  
where does the car go? should it go into suburban areas with tall  
ugly buildings or should it go in the dead center of town? etc. etc.  
etc. To me, these are not details: they are at the core of an  
installation that has an artistic aim. And there are many other  
details I can think of but I don't want to bore you (and I don't want  
to do the job for you :); in a work of art, any detail counts.”

OUR IDEAS:

INSTALLATION #1:

Marco has Michael Nyman’s text as a source. Andrea and Sara, do  
Nyman’s ideas in this article overlap with to Cage’s ideas? If so, is  
Marco a good match for the work that you want to create? Again, Prof.  
Bernardini did a good job of presenting initial questions. You can  
find Marco’s writing on Nyman here:

http://classes.berklee.edu/nleonard/padova/journal4.html

INSTALLATION #2:

Daria has chosen the short text by Toru Takemitsu entitled “Noh and  
transience”. Marco G., Perluigi, Dario and Matteo, are Takemitsu’s  
ideas connected to Schafer’s?

ASSIGNMENT: Everyone should read this very short text in its  
entirety. A PDF file is posted on the class web site.

http://classes.berklee.edu/nleonard/padova/material.html

Also read what Daria wrote about the text on our site.

To quote Daria, “They [the audience] should find out their inner  
connection with nature, with a lost level of spirituality.” Do we use  
sounds to evoke this state? Is the recorded sound of a bird better  
than the expanding and contracting rhythms of a Japanese Gakaku  
ensemble, which is in fact one of the sounds that Takemitusu used. If  
we use that sound, do we use a fragment of this court music, or to we  
recreate this temporal effect using an electric razor on a  
stratocaster. If we use the razor live, does it swing across the  
strings of the guitar like Focults Pendulum that is installed in  
Palazzo de la Ragione. Again, to return to Prof. Bernardini’s text,  
“the devil is in the details.

INSTALLATION #3:

Sound activated by motion. Again, what is the idea that you find  
yourself obsessed with here? How do you want to infludence people’s  
motion in the space. Do you make them stop walking on the street? Do  
you make them accellerate the motion of their upper body in a room?

Then we have the practical issues: Do we produce this piece using  
Andrea as visual/concept director? Antonio as programmer? Matteo as  
sound engineer? Sara as instrumentalists?

CONCLUSION

These are just my suggestions for three very general points of  
departure. I expect you to define your own groups and select a theme  
or idea for each one. If we do this before next class, then we are on  
schedule. Feel free to write to this list with questions.

Have a good weekend!

Neil
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