Augenmusik, 2016

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performance 

streets of Paris

June, 20, 2016

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collection of M HKA, Antwerp

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Re-arrangement of Art of Fugue

by J.S. Bach

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curated by Azad Asifovich

 

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>> protocol

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>> video documentation

>> overview

>> re-enactments, shows

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On the day of the summer solstice, at the beginning of twilight also called l’heure bleu, twenty-four performers departed simultaneously from each of the twenty four “entrances” to Paris. Holding flashing blue police emergency lights in front of them, the participants walked from the Parisian ring towards the geometrical center of the city at Les Halles, where they placed the sirens next to one other on the ground. Once reunited, the sound from the sirens, turned out to play The Art of the Fugue by Jean-Sebastien Bach’s unfinished opus magnum, hitherto unrecognisable.

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Each walker comes alone, from one of the 24 gates of Paris to the converging point, Les Halles. He puts his emergency light together with his siren on the floor and goes away. Progressively, as far as the walkers arrive one by one to the center, siren sounds are completing each other, and finally one can hear a fugue orchestered by 24 bitonal sirens.

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Date / Time:              June 20, 2016 (summer solstice)  / 9 p.m. - 00 p.m. ("blue hour")

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Duration:                   02 : 50 : 00 (= duration of Art of Fugue of J.S. Bach)

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Context:                     terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, installation of the emergency                                     state in France in December 2015, social movement Nuit Debout                                                 occupying Place de le République between March and July 2016,                                                 numerous attempts and new terrorist attacks in France in 2016

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Fugue:                       J.S. Bach, Art of Fugue (unfinished piece, no instrument for interpretation

                                  is specified by by)

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Performers: 

Flavie Lebrun- Taugourdeau , Lulù Nuti, Camille Le Chatelier, Johan Larnouhet, Claudia Tennant, Tanya Nedelskaya, Elodie Dao, Antoine Balaven, David Lenon, Guilhem Monceau, Matthieu, Manu Arnaud, Léa Chevrefils, Etienne Dumas, Patrick Florentiny, Laura Wagner, Thomas Jones, Fernando, Alexandre Morzy, Anaïs North, Timothée Pedron, Victoria Shalisheva, Alice Papon

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Sound design : Romain Grenier

Sound engineer : Jérémy Dahan

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Curator: Azad Asifovich

Curator's assistant: Gavriella Abekassis

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