Powers of Divergence by Lucia D'Errico

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.

P O W E R S O F D I V E R G E N C E

a n a r t i s t i c r e s e a r c h p r o j e c t b y l u c i a d ' e r r i c o

Powers of Divergence starts from the unbridgeable gap between the clarity of the semiotic codification of notation and the irreducible materiality of sound and gesture. It consists in a series of performances, each of which takes as departure point a given piece of notated music from the Western tradition (the "primary work"). An innovative possibility of relation to the musical past is constituted: instead of "recreation", "reproduction", or "reconstruction", performance is considered as a way to reflect, through practice, on the commonsensical limits of the interpretational approach to scores, in order to move beyond them.

The "primary work"functions as the generator of affects, of vectorial forces that impinge upon the here-and-now of the performer, and not so much as something to be literally mirrored in performance.

The sonic and gestural outcome is therefore neither the objective enactment of the internal relations expressed by the score, nor the result 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.

Performances do not try to approach through internal relations the unity of the sound expressed by the scores, but they constitute 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. Performance becomes radical departure from the scores taken as starting point. Sounds and gestures 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 the performer. What I am after is, as for painter 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 irreducibility, 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.

M A D O N N A I L P O C O D O L C E

After the homonymous madrigal by Nicola Vicentino (1555)

→ click to open the score of the primary work