Sympathy for the Symphony
Sound performance/installation
04 min 16 sec; played every 20 minutes (for 4 hours)
Zuidas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 4, 2009
"Sympathy for the Symphony integrates a typical feature of Amsterdam’s streets – the barrel organ – into the modern, minimalist surroundings of the Zuidas. The history and tradition of the street organ is intimately interwoven with the city, and has its roots in popular entertainment. The buildings on the Zuidas have been named after Western classical composers such as Mahler and Gershwin, and thus refer to the modern, ‘the new’. Sympathy for symphony translates the image into a book for the barrel organ, making the Zuidas audible."
(Excerpt from Software description by Researchgroup Art and Public Space)
The idea is to juxtapose the ‘past’ and the ‘now’. In this case, to have an ‘old’ sound coming from a Dutch street organ (draaiorgel) located in a ‘new’ contemporary modern architectural space.
I composed a special ‘song’ for the organ by taking a series of building photographs, and then using the building outlines from the photographs to arrange the musical patterns. The organ is placed around the area where I took the photographs. It is in principal a literal translation of the space into sound, and the sound is played back into the space.
Process of making the photographic sequence can be seen on:
Sequence process (PDF)
Organ “Klein maar Dapper” provided by G. Perlee Draaiorgels (Amsterdam).
Music book printed by Johan Weima (Leiden).
Documentation photographs taken by Catalina Nistor, Sevgi Ortaç, Viki Semou.
Special thanks to Florian Göttke, Alexandra Landre, Hans Muller, Johan Weima, and Leon Perlee.
For more information click on:
www.dutchartinstitute.nl/projects/ruffles_and_fray/index.html
www.zuidas.nl
www.draaiorgel.org/english/index.htm