Mary Farbood, harpsichordist

Morwaread Farbood. Photography by Susan Wilson.

Presenting a harpsichord/piano sculpture in my previous post, I thought it would be nice to attend an authentic harpsichord concert. My friend Mary Farbood is performing in Cambridge and in New York this April.

Morwaread Farbood, American harpsichordist of Iranian and Japanese descent, is quickly becoming recognized as one of the rising young stars in the harpsichord world. She was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award in 2006 and won First Prize at the Prague International Harpsichord Competition the previous year.

An excerpt of her playing J. S. Bach, French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816 - Allemande


An excerpt of her playing J. S. Bach, French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816 - Courante


An excerpt of her playing Louis Marchand, Suite in D minor, Pièces de clavecin


An excerpt of her playing Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D Major, K. 119



The audio exerpts are unedited and from a live performance at the MIT Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Recorded April 12, 2006. Engineer: Mike Fabio.

When and where?
Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at 8:00 PM - Pickman Concert Hall, Longy School of Music, Cambridge
Tickets

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 8:00 PM - Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York
Tickets

Program
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
Pièces de Clavecin from Suite in D minor
Les Tendres Plaintes
Les Niais de Sologne
Les Soupirs
Les Cyclopes

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Sonata in E minor, Hob.XVI/34
Presto
Adagio
Vivace molto

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903

Hubert Ho (1976 - )
Manual Labor (World and New York premieres)

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939 - )
Fantasy for Harpsichord

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Sonata K. 502 in C Major
Sonata K. 1 in D Minor
Sonata K. 119 in D Major
Sonata K. 455 in G Major

Harpsichord by Basserode

Partitions 2000, Harpsichords in oak, ebony, bone realized with the organ-maker Pascal Gourrat, 109,5 x 150 x 18,2 cm 9 photographs 13x18 cm each

When Marcel Proust writes about having tea and cookies, he is inspired by having the experience himself, which brings back memories to his mind. With my past work Textable Movie, I wanted to recreate this same phenomenon, by presenting instantly to the users, videos from their own footage. By immersion into their own memories, they could become engaged into telling rich, and passionate stories, based on past experience.

Russian poet Joseph Brodsky - "any new aesthetic reality helps man to specify his own ethical reality .../... an aesthetic choice is invariably individual, aesthetic suffering is invariably personal suffering. Any new aesthetic reality turns the person it has affected into an even more private person, and this private character, which at times takes on the form of literary or other taste, may per se, be, if not a guarantee, then at least a form of protection against enslavement"

I recently discovered partitions by Jérome Basserode. This object is very disconcerting by being a piano with only 5 white and 4 black keys, piano that is not large but thin and long. Made structurally out of oak, ebony for the keys and bone for the white keys, built based on the harpsichord technique, it creates very unusual sounds. The partition is a picture of a forest that the player can choose to play. The spectator becomes musician by following memories driven by the image.

The installation Partitions, shown in the 6th chapter of the exhibition comprises two objects that formally resemble a fragment of a grand piano but use the musical technique of a harpsichord. Each harpsichord has a keyboard that counts 9 keys ( 5 white, 4 black, in alternation). The unusual sound of these keys determines the initial playing situation. Two series of 9 photographs act as partitions, representing various motifs from the natural and urban environment. The spectator can use the motif of his choice from the photographs as a partition, sit it on the intended stand and begin playing. The visually activated memory can thus express itself musically through the spectator’s playing the harpsichord. Basserode chose to use the sculptural and architectural elements at his disposal to present the photographs. He installed them so that their placement in relation to the harpsichords would produce a certain tension. The dynamism conferred upon the exhibition space by the position of the objects presented and the harpsichords finds an extension and resonance in Kretzschmar’s music and Basserode’s nomadism. Juliane Wellerdiek

Laurent Perbos

Aire 2005, Gazon synthétique, filet de tennis. Dimensions réglementaires d'un court de tennis soit 23,774 x 10,973 m
Vues d'exposition à l'Université de Provence, Parvis du Centre des Lettres et Sciences Humaines

A French artist that I like for his joyful but shifted critic of social activities and entertainment. His area of predilection is sport. He reappropriates objects and their use and at the end we are confused on how we can make use of them. Thank you Eness for the link.

More on Laurent Perbos


Ballon2 1999 - Ballon de football en cuir, dimensions réglementaires au carré - Photographie Marcell Esterhazy

Joshua Bell toujours plus fort!

Tristan sent me the link to this awesome article. Prodige Joshua Bell plays in the subway, no one notices. I think this is so daring of Joshua Bell to play incognito facing the unresponse of the public. It tells a lot about our everyday filter!

Video

A tiny robot walked in my office today ...

Ricordo

EMRos is this family of so-called World’s smallest autonomous self-propelled micro robots. Each creature is this tiny robot that can record and play back motions being guided by a flashlight.

Ricordo is 1 cm3 in volume and equipped with a recording and playback function. Rubie on the other end is equipped with capricious wandering function. Both were created by Epson in 1995, but I finally got to play with one today, and it is adorable! I found a web site that shows beautiful pictures of the robots as well as the nice packaging that hosts them!

Pour un art tres pauvre

Pour un art très pauvre that I made with vacuum formed plastic bags and thread.

I am a ghost specialist. Ghosts in my head, in my memory, in my life. I love their evanescence, their vagueness. They carefully hide their details.

A tour at the ICA

The ICA in Boston is full of surprises with for instance a welcoming Divine Gas by Chiho Aoshima, the Hanging Fire of Cornelia Parker and Josiah McElheny's mirrors reflected infinitely ...

Language based sculpture

Key and Cue, No. 288 by Roni Horn, 1994, Solid aluminum and black plastic, 51 x 2 x 2 inches
Photo by Oren Slor, Courtesy Max Protetch Gallery, New York

My relationship to my work is extremely verbal, extremely language-based. I am probably more language-based than I am visual, and I move through language to arrive at the visual. So I’ve always questioned whether I am really a visual artist. You get into this situation where your ‘identity’ takes over your actual being because you get stuck with whatever it is you resemble to other people—not who you are. They’re not necessarily the same thing. — Roni Horn

More about Roni Horn

Markus Hofer

Bildträger, Leinwand, vor Ort vorhandener Besen; ca. 100 x 200 cm; 2004

One of my favorite Markus Hofer's piece is Bildträger.
Markus' work is very fresh, an in between graffiti and installation. Obviously site specific, his work consists of redesigning elements of a space to make it an object altogether. His work is very inspirational for my current attempts in sculpture.


Blackbox Holz, Spachtelmasse, Kabel, Lack; 25 x 40 x 3 cm; 2004

Eness

Everlab's 1 hour circle by Eness

I recently had the pleasure to meet Nimrod Weis, co-founder of Eness.



I discovered his Pixile work, an interactive digital sculpture which transforms a series of static objects into an interactive illusion giving this powerful illusion of real-life objects spinning, changing and responding to each other.



I love Virsual, their digital rocking horse, a wireless, ride-on rocking horse equipped with its own motion sensor device. As riders saddle up a 3D game is activated and displayed on screen. I definitely can tell how much children would love this.



Their latest installation commissioned by Audi to exhibit at the New Audi TT launch in Sydney next week. So if you are in Sydney, check it out!
Video.

A series of four translucent screens, each representing a solid cross section of time and space, Three dimensional objects rapidly passing through. These sections deflect, ricochet and manipulate thousands of virtual particles contained in these cross sections. The high impact point of collision between space and matter create an endless amount of esthetical beautiful iconic formations. The gravity of the particles are effected by camera tracking, meaning that the particles direction and velocity change depending on the position of the viewer.

More on Eness' web site