Bourdon / Pop Corn
May 2013
(stereo excerpts from the quadriphonic sound installations in Christian Holstad's show The Book of Hours)
Press release from Andrew Kreps:
Sound installations by Martin Maugeais with Christian Holstad’s The Book of Hours May 11th – June 22nd, 2013
Martin Maugeais’ sound installations are produced from material gathered over a period of 40 days. Everyday Maugeais recorded his attempt to sing the purest and most perfectly consistent tone that could come from his voice. Either reinterpreting or reminiscing the attempt of a previous day, Maugeais repeated this simple but impossible task in order to accumulate a series of accidents that would serve as material for the sound installations. In music theory as in science the term “accident” does not bear the negative connotation found in common language, which indicates a cultural rejection of the unpredicted. The sound installation is constructed solely by what didn't go according to plan. The intention of creating perfection made the result tend towards a unique sound with no asperity. But a potter can never make the same pot twice. This opposition between reality and the imaginary appears in medieval music in the distinction between musica recta (the structure) and musica ficta (the ornaments). In the sound installation Maugeais addresses this opposition: an ideal structure is altered by imperfections that occurred in the making. Accidents become accidentals, notes that do not belong to a given musical scale and are used for their expressive content.
The first installation, Bourdon, presents the samples untransformed. They accumulate one by one, from a single voice to a choir to a very rich polyphony: the sum of 40 unique waveforms, 40 different ideas of a "pure and perfect note", and thousands of unpredicted events. Each recording bears the mark of a particular day now forgotten -- a day that was once today. Each sound is projected in the space with a unique trajectory, creating a moving sound mass very similar to a beehive. The movements applied to each sample provide an orchestration through space and the dynamics of this sound piece are the result of these movements. The name Bourdon refers both to bees and to medieval art, two elements integral to Christian Holstad's concurrent show. Also, Bourdon is French for bumblebee, as well as a compositional process consisting in the repetition of a note. The same material was used to form the second installation, Pop Corn in which the sound files play back in the original order in which they were recorded. Analyzing the pitch and detecting the occurrence of events (defined as a sudden change in the sound spectrum), the computer generates notes that are then played by acoustic instruments. An organ reveals rich textures, and a harpsichord highlights the succession of events occurring acting as two sides of the same coin. For many centuries art has been considered an imitation of nature. For Italian baroque composers, music had to imitate the human voice because its inflections were considered the expression of human emotions. Taking this idea literally, Maugeais made the organ and the harpsichord imitate his voice. Because of the origin of the data, the generated score is rich with musical elements. A pattern emerges, or a melody seems to move along a central note. The daily recording process itself functions as a musical variation (repetition in an altered form), a process that appeared in the end of the middle Ages. Lastly, in Pop Corn, each sample is played following a rule. The first sample is played, then the second one, twice, then the first one again, creating a pattern (1221 2332 3443 4554 5665…). Maugeais introduced elements so that the transcription is never the same and from this pattern emerges the form of the composition.
Martin Maugeais lives and works in Paris and New York. He studied computer programming, musical composition and visual music at the University of Paris 8 (Saint-Denis) and completed a Masters degree in in 2012. His practice includes music composition (both instrumental and digital), sound installations, and performing with bands Femme Fractale and The General Society. His work will be included in the upcoming exhibition Champs-Elysees at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in June.
Andrew Kreps Gallery 537 W 22nd Street New York, NY 10011 Andrew Kreps Gallery
