Queen
Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, London, Sunday 14th October
Given
my previous Julia Wolfe review, readers may not be too
surprised to hear that composer Michael Gordon was another founder of
new music ensemble Bang On a Can. But the genesis of this film
soundtrack project lay not with him, but when Bill Morrison visited a
film library and came across the scene of a boxer battling an
amorphous blur (see image above) - and sought out more such decaying
footage. In an interesting reversal, Gordon composed the music and
Morrison then edited the assembled footage to fit.
One
immediate reading of that boxer image might be that it illustrates
disease. When we fall ill we are attacked by ever-morphing shapeless
microbes which we have to fight off. This image just evens up the
scale between the two. Alternately the decaying film of earlier eras
could be seen as part of post-modern condition. We've become removed
from the past and it's simpler, more linear world of derring-do. That
title, after all, sounds a portmanteau of 'decades' and 'decay'. By
it's nature much of the footage hails from that oxymoronically titled era of
classic modernism - where technology was thought to be on the point
of liberating us all. Both of those views have some traction. But
it's ultimately saying something more universal and more double-edged
than both of them.
Perhaps
ironically given Gordon's past associations with Wolfe, this work is
more similar to Christian Marclay. Both not only plunder the past for
collage material, but incorporate it's 'foreign country' status into their aesthetic. Yet with Marclay that aesthetic is vinyl
fetishism seen through hindsight, whereas here the distressed nature
of the footage is important in itself. But of things previously mentioned
in these parts, it probably has a closer-still association with 'Koyaaniqatsi'
or even 'The
Sinking of the Titanic'.
Yet,
as ever, the differences become a better guide than the similarities.
While 'Titanic' was about the transience of
memory, this is more concerned with the inevitability of entropy.
(Or, to give it its colloquial name, decay.) However, even that's not
quite it...
From
Lovecraft's many-angled ones to cheesy monster flicks such as 'The
Blob', (above) formlessness is forever defined as a foe while
heroes are square-jawed and clean-cut. But slowly, as proceedings
unfurled, I found myself leaving the boxer's side and taking more to
the blur. It came to seem less representing disorder than the return
of some sort of primal order on which we've superimposed ourselves -
like the Wyrd-world
of shamanism that follows its own rules. And of course in
shamanism sickness was often a means of spiritual insight. (In my
typically lowbrow fashion, it also reminded me of the time vortex
during the credits of 'Doctor Who'.)
In his
pre-show chat, Morrison commented that in his search for footage he
homed in on figures on the brink of revelation or triumph. (He noted
sagely that indexing systems don't tend to have a category for that.)
If the boxer was the starting point, the film opens and closes with
images of a whirling dervish. Contrast this with the sequence which
concludes 'Koyaaniqatsi' - a space rocket falling
back to earth. These epitomise the difference between the films.
'Koyaaniqatsi' is concerned with the modern
condition, which it sees as a life thrown out of balance.
'Decasia's concerns are less contemporary, more
universal and more double-edged. Our struggle is to embrace that
primordial world as much as escape it.
The
importance in using found footage to achieve this end couldn't be
overstated. The screen isn't displaying the summation of an artist's
will, a thought brought fully formed to fruition, but an interaction
with the chance processes of the wider world. Seeing those glitches and
mis-shapes blown up on a giant screen, like the universe of microbes
revealed by a microscope, and knowing they'd evolved by pure chance
just makes them more beautiful. (Disclaimer: some of the 'decay' was
artificially enhanced, though none of it was faked.)
Gordon's
music is similarly double-edged. At times it's tremulous to the point
of being blurry - as if the scores had been left out in the rain
until the notes all ran together. At other times it was as stirring
and strident as anything by Tchaikovsky. Sometimes it's both at the
same time, the balance between them overlaid and ceaselessly
shifting.
In one
sense it pulls off the seemingly irreconcilable task that
post-minimalism set itself. It combines the immediacy of minimalism
with the power and epic sweep of classical music - the sheer thumping
force of a full orchestra in full swing. True, it abandons the
meditative serenity of minimalism, its language is much more
volatile. But it retains minimalism's comparative sense of scale,
it's refusal to hold the big above the small. (Perhaps not too much
should be made that Gordon composed this piece rather than Wolfe.
Wolfe's programme jumped from minimalism to post-minimalism and back,
but was composed of shorter pieces.)
Yet of
course it does something better and more important than any of that -
it works as the perfect accompaniment to the film! It was as if those
blurry strings were symbiotically linked to the flecks and marks upon
the screen, one rising and falling with the other, not the product of
two separate minds at all.
This
festival had a fantastic-looking programme, from which alas I could
only attend these three events. But even without seeing the rest,
surely with 'Decasia' I caught the highlight of
the whole shebang. The thing was a triumph!
And so to sum up...
Overall,
I'd emphasise that while the three pieces I saw were unconventional
and adventurous, they never fell into the inaccessible. It wasn't
some great challenge to get your reward, like chewing raw wholegrain.
It doesn't rely on in-depth knowledge of music theory. (Of which I
have scarcely any.) It's just great music, waiting to be heard by
anyone whose mind is open enough to give something a try...
In
one of my few complaints Queen Elizabeth Hall's conventional venue
layout worked against some of the more unconventional styles of
presentation these pieces have used in the past. It was only Marclay
that tried anything like this. But even given those limits perhaps
more could have been done to take things in that direction. Perhaps
if there's another year...
I
would have loved to have taken in more events from this Festival but
not enough money, not enough time! Here's just a couple of random
YouTube snippets...
Coming soon! Back to visual art...
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