Score by Danica Maier and Mechanical Asynchronicity by Martin Scheuregger as part of the exhibition Bummock: The Lace Archive at Backlit Gallery, Nottingham 2018
Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity is a collaborative project between a visual artist Danica Maier and composer Martin Scheuregger. The project takes a single lace pattern from the Nottingham Lace Archive as the starting point for new live and installation-based visual-musical works. The working process and presentation of Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity sees the fine artist become ‘composer’ and composer become ‘artist’. Their roles move from user – of each other’s discipline knowledge, aesthetic understanding and technique – to author of works which are contingent on their collaboration but can still be identified as belonging to their individual practices.
Maier and Scheuregger have each created an individual score from working with a historical lace draft. Drawing onto long semi-transparent sheets of mylar Maier dissected the original lines found on the draft onto four different overlapping liner elements that are each used as a graphic score for the individual instruments. Each drawing was given to the musician for them to practice and notate directly onto – these notations form a new collaborative drawing with the musician. Each instrument’s graphic score is layered over top of the other creating a new whole – together they are shown as a drawing in exhibitions.
Scheuregger’s score was developed through a process of iterative transcription that links the material back to the original lace. The score is presented as a continuous strip of almost five metres, folded to create four two-page spreads. Players move through the same score, each making their own independent decisions as to how they navigate an array of branching motifs. The input (the score) is the same for each musician, but the outputs (the performances) can be quite different: the result is an intentionally asynchronous performance with a tension between similarity and difference.
Working with four musicians (Clarinet, Cello, Flute, Violin) from Dark Inventions, an artist-led performer-composer collective, Maier and Scheuregger’s individual graphic scores have been recorded and cut onto both sides of four vinyl records. With each graphic score recorded individually by each instrument - Maier's piece is found on Side A and Scheuregger's on Side B of each vinyl record; the work is inherently singular and collaborative at the same time.
In its totally the piece includes four vinyl records, played on four record players and four live musicians – from this there are multiple versions that can be experimented with and played. (Solo live musicians can duet with themself on vinyl; 2 live musicians with 1 alterative instrument on vinyl; 2 live musicians with alternative instruments on 2 vinyl; no live musicians and a combination of the 4 vinyl’s; 1 live and all 4 vinyl’s; and so forth)
The performers play a part in continuing the collaborative process as they develop approaches to the scores – which include graphic and choice-based elements – presented to them in a public rehearsal process. By working together, the musicians are able to create a coherent approach to the work, forming interpretative strategies that create effective musical results yet are ‘imperfectly’ matched to the mechanical recordings.
Overall, the work explores the manner in which an iterative re-encoding process has been employed to develop the work while embracing imperfection and glitch as an intrinsic part of its aesthetic. Key ideas of transcribing, encoding and re-encoding are explored through the work which has seen the original data of the lace patterns first transcribed ‘naively’ into lines, then inscribed as punch-cards to be used with programmable music boxes. These initial musical results have furthermore been transcribed into traditional music notation before additional graphic renditions are created as both drawing and score.
This way of working has resulted in a variety of compositions/installations derived from a singular work, each of which contains various degrees of repetition and degrading repetition. These works are characterised by ‘faults’ in the repeated elements: vertical elements may appear to be presented simultaneously, but desynchronisation ‘breaks’ the repetition felt in the original; while horizontal repetitions of notation result in different sonic results.
Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity developed out of the artistic research project Bummock: The Lace Archive in which Maier was working with historical lace drafts found within The Lace Archvice held at Nottingham Trent University. Maier experimented with transposing the technical drawing into a music score and began discussions with composer Dr. Martin Scheuregger in developing the sound(s) these drawings create. Similar to the process of machine-made lace of transferring the drawing into machine's punch cards, Maier translated the lines found in the technical drawing into a single line of a music box punch card. Her piece titled Score was played daily on either a 30 note or 20 note music box at 3 pm. Scheuregger’s Mechanical Asynchronicity I explored the inherent musicality of the individual lines of a multi-part texture. A Bach chorale harmonisation – a four-part piece that epitomises contrapuntal composition – is heard with each part recorded individuality. The texture becomes about the individuality of each line, as the intended harmony of the original is blurred. This asynchronicity robs the original of its purpose, whilst showing the inherent beauty of its constituent parts. Scheuregger’s piece was also accompanied by a marimba during live events throughout the exhibition.
Score No. 2 by Danica Maier performed at Summer Lodge, Nottingham and Film, Free, and Easy, Primary Studios, Nottingham 2018
Danica's piece Score was developed into a durational sound and film performance Score No. 2. This work sees the artist playing the 20-note music box followed by the 30-note music box while watching a film of the historical lace draft the punch card was derived from. The film slowly zooms into a small detail of the lace draft and then out again over an hour-long performance in which each iteration lasts for 30 mins. The same punch card is used but is drastically different in musicality and mood as Danica changes and plays the same punch card tape from the 20 note to the 30 note music box. The audience is invited to sit and watch for the duration, wonder within the space, and/or stay for only a moment.
Score No. 3 by Danica Maier performed in Martin Scheuregger's Urban Soundings as part of the POPOUT Festival, Lincoln Performing Art Centre's, Lincoln 2018
PopOut Festival placed live performance, music and theatre into spaces outside of traditional venues. The Urban Soundings concert filled one floor of the newly built Lincoln Central Car Park, performing music that ranged from medieval plainchant to ambient electronica. Transforming spaces from their usual function into concert venue Urban Soundings played with the audience's expectations of mundane municipal architecture. Danica was invited to play the music box piece Score, accompanied by Annie Morrad on saxophone and Zoë Scheuregger on marimba who riffed and improvised with the music box's fixed sound (prescribed by the punch card). The event overlapped and flowed from one performance into the next creating a larger totality of sound work and music.
The live event took place as part of programming for Still Undead; the Nottingham chapter of the Bauhaus Imaginista international project, on 28 September. The two-hour evening concert was preceded by a daylong public rehearsal during which Maier and Scheuregger worked collabor- atively with the musicians to develop the evenings performance. The final installation of the piece includes 4 musicians, 4 record player and records, and two projected films.
Nottingham Contemporary, part of public programming for Still Undead; the Nottingham chapter of the Bauhaus Imaginista international project, 2019
Constance Howard Gallery, Goldsmiths College, London as part of the exhibition Bummock: The Lace Archive, 2019
Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity was part of the touring exhibition of Bummock: The Lace Archive at The Constance Howard Gallery, Goldsmith College London. During the show one record player and all 8 records were available for audiences to choose and play from. During the opening night Jonathan Sage played clarinet live and in duet with his recorded self found on the vinyl record. The music box tape was also shown alongside items from the Goldsmiths Textile Collection.
Lockdown performance - together while separate, online, recorded from each musicians lockdown location, 2021
During lockdown due to Covid-19 it became impossible to come together for performances. A full-length concert was created from the musicians’ locations of isolation. Recorded using what was to accessible, each Side was played while listening to their recorded self. The simple recorded versions have been edited together (re)creating a full length ‘lockdown’ concert.
The live event took place as part of programming for York Concerts at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York on 28 January, 2022. The two-hour evening concert was preceded by a daylong rehearsal during which Danica and Martin worked collaboratively with the musicians to develop the evenings performance. The final installation of the piece includes 4 musicians, 4 record player and records, and two projected films.
Both artwork and performance were part of this exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery. The graphic scores created by Danica and Martin where both exhibited as alongside 4 track record versions of the pieces. Danica’s work combines 4 overlapping drawings that have been notated by each musician as they rehearsed and ‘learned’ the piece. Together these drawings form a new whole incorporating the collaborative process of developed Maier took with the musicians. It is a visual version of the same sound work – both with linear element; combined and singular moments; details, glitches, repetition. As the lace pattern is dissected the inherited repetition, rhyme and line found within remains in both the visual and audio elements. Martin's score reaches 5 mts in length, filling the gallery wall. The laid-out score, created from transcribed fragments of the original music box piece, visually evidences choice-based elements and the encoding process. The live event took place within the gallery as performance and installation. It was preceded by a daylong public rehearsal during which Danica and Martin worked collaboratively with the musicians to develop the evenings performance.
Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity III formed part of the opening concert for the Prix Annelie de Man, an international harpsichordist festival. The piece composed by Martin Scheuregger with Danica Maier. Uses Danica’s recorded music box as the starting point for Martin's to newly compose a score specifically for the harpsichord.
Played by internationally known harpsichordist - Jane Chapman - the final installation of the piece includes a film projection on the harpsicord and Jane as well as recorded fragments of the music box as played by Danica.
Orgelpark, Amsterdam, Netherland, Prix Annelie de Man, International Harpsichordist Festival played by Jane Chapman, 2021
Mansions of the Future, as part of AAZ Public Program run by General Practice, live event testing Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity, Lincoln, 2019
Music and / as Process, testing Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London, 2019
Harpsichordist Jane Chapman playing live re-composed Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity III (for Harpsichord) by Martin Scheuregger with Danica Maier, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Lincoln, 14 March 2019
Jane Chapman, described as “Britain’s most progressive harpsichordist”, preformed a newly (re)composed piece by Martin Scheuregger with Danica Maier. Using Danica’s recorded music box as the starting point to write a new composition created specifically for the harpsichord. The live element was accompanied by fragments from the recorded music box.
Danica and Martin were invited by the GP artist group to participate in Approaching Affective Zero (AAZ) a monthly programme of events promoting a wide range of creative disciplines and collaborations including live sound, performances and projections. For this event Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity played experimental iterations of the four vinyl records accompanied by Annie Morrad playing improvisation on saxophone. Audiences members were also invited to suggest new arrangements of how the records were played as well as engage with the music box and its ‘recorded’ sound as heard while hand cranking the punch card through the mechanism.
The Music and / as Process focused on the process, and processes, of realising collaborative scores. The day-long event consisted of workshops, discussion, and performances performed by delegates and members of the Music and/as Process study group. This was an early outing for Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity during which Danica Maier's score was experienced, experimented and performed live by four members of the audience and study group. It was requested that the musicians and audience member notate Danica's score as part of their rehearsal process. These annotated scores have been collected and will be used for future re-drawing of the score. The desire is to create a ‘score from the score’ based solely on numerous musicians notations.
Exhibition and Live Events:
2022 Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity, York Concerts, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York
2021 Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity III, Prix Annelie de Man, International Harpsichordist Festival played by Jane Chapman, Orgelpark, Amsterdam, NL
2019 Nottingham Contemporary, (with the Dark Inventions ensemble), public programming for Still Undead; the Nottingham chapter of the Bauhaus Imaginista international project, 27+28 September 2019
2019 Bummock: The Lace Archive, Constance Howard Gallery, Goldsmiths, London
2019 Mansions of the Future, as part of the AAZ Public Program run by General Practice, Lincoln
2019 Ruskin Gallery, (with the Dark Inventions ensemble), Cambridge
2019 Score: Mechanical Asynchronicity III, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Harpsichordist Jane Chapman, Lincoln
2019 China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, China (film)
2018 Film, Free and Easy, Primary Project Space, Nottingham
2018 POPOUT Festival, Lincoln Performing Art Centre's, Lincoln
2018 Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham
2018 Bummock: Lace Archive, Backlit Gallery, Nottingham
Conferences:
2020 Attending Again, D. Maier, Keynote, Music Symposium, University of Lincoln
2019 Music and/as Process, Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London
2019 Notation for Improvisers, Institute of Musical Research, Senate House London
Funded and Supported by: Arts Council England, Nottingham Trent University, University of Lincoln
Danica Maier is an American artist and academic currently living and working in Lincolnshire. Her practice focuses on the un-repeating-repeat, material processes, transposition, conflating expectations, and how an audience looks / listens; as well as the dialogical nature of collaborative projects that foster independent artworks alongside wider group outcomes. Her work uses site-specific installations, drawing, and objects to explore expectations, while using subtle slippages to transgress propriety. Recent exhibitions / live events include: Bummock: Tennyson Research Centre (ongoing project); Associated Thoughts on Line, as part of the Convocation: On Expanded Language - Based Practices within the Research Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale; re-turning, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent. Maier is an Associate Professor in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, where she supervises Phd candidates.
See more here: www.danicamaier.com
Martin Scheuregger is a musicologist and composer, and Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Lincoln. He was awarded the degree of PhD from the University of York in 2015 for his thesis ‘Conceptions of Time and Form in Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Music’, which combines musical analyses and compositions. His interests in the methodologies of practice research have led to recent publications exploring the role of the written element in composition PhDs, and the role of autoethnography in composition research. He has published on the music of György Kurtág and Thomas Simaku, and is currently developing a monograph on the music of British composer George Benjamin. Martin’s compositional interests focus on ideas of time, specifically brevity, fragmentation and stasis. This is reflected in a range of works that have at their core fragile and delicate textures, and pieces that explicitly play with the use of short forms.
Dark Inventions is an artist-led performer-composer collective, whose work encompasses curation, composition, performance and outreach. Formed in 2012 by composer-conductor Christopher Leedham and composer-analyst Martin Scheuregger, the group brings together performers, composers and researchers with a diverse range of experience as a genuinely cross-genre and collaborative collective.
See more here: www.darkinventions.co.uk
