Michael @ Mengi

Michael Francis Duch performing Reconstruction V: Shadows of Machines, at Mengi, Reykjavik on 24 November.  Composition by Lene Grenager, video projection by Jeremy Welsh.

Lemur at Mengi, Reykjavik

Friday 24 November Norwegian contemporary ensemble are performing at Mengi in Reykjavik where the programme will include the film-music project Reconstruction V: Shadows of Machines, a collaboration between myself, composer Lene Grenager and bassist Michael Duch.  The work was premiered in January 2022 and has been performed several times in Norway. This will be the first international performance.

Michael Duch performing at Trondheim Cinematheque, June 2022.

The Impossibility Exhibition

A further episode in the ongoing collaboration with British author Paul A. Green.  His text The Impossibility Exhibition was originally written in 1989 and appeared in a video work entitled "Terminal Zones" that was made for an event at London Filmmakers' Co-op celebrating the work of J.G. Ballard. A re-recording of the text was made in 2016 an d re-edited in November 2023 to make this new video, in which Paul Green reads the entire text. The speaker is montaged into a slow-moving slideshow of monochrome images showing often indistinct details of architecture and urban landscapes.

A production of The Quantum Brothers and The Institute for Random Studies.

Autumn 2023 projects, Bergen.

Songs we Sing is an experimental music and multimedia project initiated by Alwynne Pritchard and Hans Knut Sveen. In September 2023 they invited a diverse group of artists and musicians to join them for an intensive workshop followed by a one day public event - an open rehearsal rather than a finished performance. Participants, in addition to the two project leaders, were Tijs Ham, Hild Borchgrevink, Thorolf Thuestad, Roar Sletteland and Jeremy Welsh. The live event featured video, electronic sound, spoken word, visual performance and music played on harmonium, electronic cello and violin. A spoken performance by Alwynne Pritchard was video recorded, remixed and combined with video shot earlier in the week.

 

Persistent Disequilibrium III took place at the end of September at the cultural centre WRAP in Bergen. Tijs Ham, Øyvind Brandtsegg, Trond Lossius and Jeremy Welsh held a four day workshop to further develop the work, then a public performance took place on Saturday 30th. September. A three hour improvised performance within an installation built up over four days extended some of the ideas developed in earlier iterations of the project, while exploring new possibilities. As previously, the installation included surround sound and multiple video projections. All of the imagery was generated during the workshop, and included pre-recorded loops and live projections using a digital microscope to record the movements of magnetically agitated iron particles and steel balls.

Overdue update :-)

Things have been quiet on here so far in 2023, which is to say I have neglected to publish updates. The Persistent Disequilibrium collaborative group project continues, the most recent instalment having been an exhibition and performance-concert at Møre og Romsdal Kunstsenter in Molde, March 2023. The next outing with the group will be at Kulturhuset WRAP in Bergen in September, and then a theatrical version at Rosendal Teater, Trondheim, during next year's Meta.Morf biennale of art and technology. Further on, discussions are underway to produce an installation and concert for Molde Jazz festival in 2024. 

Below are some "production stills" from Molde. The working method of Persistent Disequilibrium is that we conduct an intensive on-site workshop to develop the specific installation and performance for that particular venue. Hence the project will never be the same twice, though certain elements are repeated. Transducers are used both to produce sounds and to physically manipulate materials which are recorded on video to create projections. And one of the instruments produces both sound and image - a wooden board that creates partly chance-based paintings on large sheets of watercolour paper. A multi channel audio installation that combines pre-recorded material with live electronic sound functions as a binding element, together with projection,  to tie the whole installation into one spatial unity.

Days of testing are essential to find the right elements that will work together

Tijs Ham setting up an installation with modular synthesiser and animated fluid.

Trond Lossius tests the spatial audio in the installation

Øyvind Brandtsegg tests the main instrument of the installation. Transducers vibrate the table and create a painting.

In the meantime, group member Tijs Ham has just completed his Phd at the Griegakademiet, University of Bergen.  Tijs and I will also take part in a workshop & performance initiated by composer/performer Alwynne Pritchard later in the year, together with several musicians, where we will reinterpret/deconstruct/reconstruct a number of songs. That will be an interesting experiment.

Tijs Ham defending his Phd project Tipping Points on 23 June 2023

The acquisition of a new and more powerful iPad and a 2. generation Apple Pencil, plus new or updated software, enabled some experiments with electronic collage, combining photographic fragments with digital drawing and painting tools. Maybe these will end up as works on paper, maybe they are simply sketches, visual thought experiments pointing toward something else. After years of working in a project-oriented mode, where production is always geared toward a specific exhibition, performance or concert, the practice of simply making things in the studio is slightly strange. The process of making is itself enjoyable and stimulating, but whether the output has any meaning or purpose beyond its own becoming is a question I don't manage to resolve at present.