Three moments
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sound, art, place and other random musings
hi. i'm an artist and composer living and working in brooklyn, new york.
i like making sounds, creating immersive experiences, taking photographs of quirky things i find on walks, video editing and daydreaming of faraway places.
i also enjoy teaching people stuff. i'm finishing up a phd at princeton university.
my website is at www.betseybiggs.org.
have a great day.
July 18, 2008
July 17, 2008
50 Years Later: Poème électronique
Poème électronique, housed in the groundbreaking Philips Pavilion, was created for the 1958 World's Fair, held in Brussels. It was the collaborative effort of Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis, and Edgard Varèse.
This video has been posted elsewhere, but it's great to get a glimpse of what this seminal work must have been like 50 summers ago. Now just imagine walking through Xenakis's futuristic stomach-shaped pavilion, with 425 speakers arranged throughout the walls, projections and stills, and a giant model of an atom hanging from the ceiling. Really the first immersive installation (that I know of). It was immensely popular - nearly 2 million people experienced it before it was dismantled at the end of the fair.
Le Corbusier conceived of the project and created the visuals, which included "color ambiences, a movie, three small images around the screen, a sun and a moon, clouds, lightning, stars, and two 3D objects hanging from the ceiling." (quote from documentary below). Xenakis designed the building (and created a musique concrète piece, Concret PH, which was played as a kind of interlude between performances of Poème électronique). Varèse, of course, created the electroacoustic score. Together the work depicts the history of humankind in eight minutes. It's worth noting that Le Corbusier and Varèse worked on the visuals and music independently.
The intro text, translated, is:
Philips have created an automatic apparatus that inaugurates a new art with unlimited possibilities, via a synthesis of light, colour, picture, speech and music displayed in space.
The "Electronic Poem," wrought by Le Corbusier, his collaborator Iannis Xenakis and the composer Edgard Varèse aims at showing how our increasingly mechanized civilization is striving towards a new harmony in the future.
The scenario consists of the following sequences:
- Genesis
- Spirit and Matter
- From Darkness to Dawn
- Man-made Gods
- How time moulds civilization
- Harmony
- To all mankind
Also worth checking out is this documentary about a virtual reality project that reconstructs the Pavilion:
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July 14, 2008
The Battery Maritime Building as Abandoned Nest
In any case, he has two chapters back to back, one on nests and the other on shells. It's interesting reading - he discusses the primal feel of security the images of nests give us (if he had only lived to witness the naming of the 'nesting' phenomenon) and the idea of resurrection to be found from the image of animals coming out of shells.
It occurred to me that the Battery Maritime Building, where David Byrne's Playing the Building is housed, really feels a lot like an abandoned nest, an abandoned nest now resonating in the movement that accompanies its evolution into something else. This sounding sometimes takes the form of squawking, sometimes moaning, sometimes rumbling, and sometimes making sharp painful sounds all over its body.
But then I read the shell chapter, and I also thought of this building, which birthed so many ships leaving its slips over the years, as a kind of shell into which the ships, and lots of lots of people, have retreated - and then left again, reborn into the symbolism of New York Harbor.
Fascinating stuff.
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July 13, 2008
Playing the Building: A few videos
I'll have a walkthrough up shortly... but in the meantime:From Wired. Listen to the reverb!
I think this is the official video from Creative Time.
It's fascinating to see people's reactions so close up.
A longer feature, from Boing Boing.
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July 13, 2008
Will the Real Banksy Please Stand Up?
Apparently Bansky's identity has been discovered. So what?
I don't care much for the one-name phenomenon, and I thought the elephant thing was pretty lame, but I really do love some of his work. He makes me laugh.
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July 12, 2008
Playing the Building
My first impressions: the space feels mythic, perched on the water, haunted by anthropomorphic sounds. I found it just as interesting to simply listen to it creak and sway as to play the organ.
I took the free IKEA water taxi to get there from Red Hook, which was super fun.
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July 11, 2008
On my way to David Byrne's Playing the Building
Will be spending 3-4 hours there to see how people are enjoying it. Look for some photos and audio/video coming up.
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