Exposition

Powers of Divergence (last edited: 2018)

Lucia D'Errico
open exposition

About this exposition

The project Powers of Divergence deals with the problem of "representation" in written music. The notion of musical interpretation itself presupposes a belief in an original, a sound that exists before the score, either in the mind of the composer in dialogue with itself, or in a given moment in history – the first performance, the performance practice at the time of the composer... The task of the interpreter would then be to "reconstruct" such sound, represented through signs in the score, in performance. By contrast, in my practice I am trying to create musical simulacra (in the Deleuzian sense as formulated in Logic of Sense) that sever the link with such original, through the materiality of sound and of performative gesture. My "compositions" (even if such a word is problematic I use it here for lack or impossibility of terminology) are radical departures from the scores I observe. They are trying to maintain a link with the "original" scores, but a link that is built upon sensation, affect, a form of encounter that exceeds both the (supposed) objectivity of the sign and the (supposedly existent) subjectivity of myself as performer. What I am after is, as for Francis Bacon, a "resemblance through non resembling means": resemblance as product and not as producer. This implies also a work on the methods of performance: a research on how to elude representation and the wielder of the sign (meant, as Saussure explains, as solely mental) through an insistence on materiality, and on its irriducibility, excess and ambiguity. For this reason, my project involves a reflection on notation and on modes of inscription that happen directly in the body and in sound. The project consists in a series of performances, each of which takes as departure point a given piece of notated music (called the "primary work"). Through performance, an innovative possibility of a relation to musical past. Performance is not regarded as "recreation", "reproduction", "reconstruction", or "interpretation", but as a way to reflect, through practice, on the bundle of commonsensical implications embedded in the allographic nature of written music. The "primary work" is not something to be mirrored in performance, but the generator of affects, of vectorial forces that impinge upon the here and now of the performer. The sonic and gestural result is therefore neither the result of an objective expression of the interal relations expressed by the score, nor of the subjective self-expression of the performer. Rather, it issues as a third state, one of suspension and non-representation, where performer and work are mobilised towards each other.
typeresearch exposition
date31/03/2017
last modified23/01/2018
statusin progress
share statuspublic
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/351522/351523/1203


Simple Media

id name copyright license
353406 Screen Shot 2017-04-08 at 17.18.57 Lucia D'Errico All rights reserved
353402 Kreislerianum 4 Lucia D'Errico All rights reserved
353393 Vicentino score Lucia D'Errico All rights reserved
353386 Screen Shot 2017-04-08 at 15.49.39 Lucia D'Errico All rights reserved
353376 Sant andrea superimpositions Lucia D'Errico All rights reserved

Comments are only available for registered users.