Tomás Saraceno JAMMING WITH SPIDERS

Music

[Visual Arts / Performance]

“ON AIR”, Tomás Saraceno’s carte blanche at the Palais de Tokyo, plunges the visitor into a large-scale “cosmic jam session”, intermixing the sounds and resonances of the universe. Punctuating the exhibition, three “JAMMING WITH SPIDERS” will be offering visitors a unique listening experience by creating a dialogue between musicians and spiders.

Tomás Saraceno will be occupying the different spaces of the Palais de Tokyo with works that make us more aware of our interconnections and interdependencies with an infinity of other scales. In this aim, the exhibition space will be turned into a membrane in which a random, evolving choreography will unfurl. Within this choreography, the multiplicity, richness, and complexity of the different agents that make up the universe, visible and invisible, human and non-human, perceptible and non-perceptible for our organism, become the innumerable voices of the concert of the living.
Tomás Saraceno celebrates the polyphony of the cosmos and seeks to bring about an encounter between man and animal through a series of three “inter-species jam sessions”, forming a core part of his work. The musicians are invited to play with the spiders, and to find the frequencies and modes of vibration which give rise to a dialogue with these other living beings. Intended as highlights of the project, bringing together members of the public and musicians in a process of listening, playing and mutual harmonisation, these concerts stem from all that is random or improvised, and from our own resilience.

Programme:
Alvin Lucier, October 26, 21h
Moon bounce concert
Alvin Lucier, historical gure of experimental music from the 1960’s until today imagines an unreleased work for ON AIR during which his heartbeat is picked up by a special sensor, routed through the silk strings of a Qin, ancient Chinese stringed instrument, and sent to the moon. In about two-and-a-half seconds each heartbeat will bounce back to Earth. The sound of the heartbeats will change according to re ection points from the Moon’s surface.
Evan Zyporin, November 23, 19h30
The spider’s canvas
Evan Ziporyn, composer and director of the Center for Art, Science and Technology of MIT, imagines a new piece for ON AIR, in which an ensemble plays together in a spider web.
“We play in the canvas of the spider, using soni cation of 3D models and 2D images in the harmonic language of Just Intonation. Rather than playing with the spider herself, we are using her webs as the basis of our music, reading her scores, using her geometries as the foundation for our vibrations, she provides us a soundscape through which we can wander”. A collaboration between MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (Professor Markus Buehler, director).
With, Christine Southworth, bagpipes, guitars & eBows, visuals/ projections. Isabelle Su, interactive environment design and real- time data processing

Eliane Radigue, December 14, 19h30
OCCAM OCEAN
Eliane Radigue proposes a sequel of her Occam Ocean series, a meditative sound exploration that she started in 2011. Using only low frequencies instruments or voices tonalities - the ones that spiders are likely to be hearing - the musicians perform solos, duets and quartets, playing very long and continuous notes with the hope to trigger their reactions and play live with them.
OCCAM RIVER XXII - new piece | Éliane Radigue and Carol Robinson
Carol Robinson, clarinette basse and Bertrand Gauguet, saxophon
OCCAM RIVER XIX (2018) | Éliane Radigue
Yannick Guédon, baryton and Julia Eckhardt, alto
OCCAM DELTA XVIII - new piece | Éliane Radigue
Yannick Guédon, baryton, Carol Robinson, clarinette basse, Bertrand Gauguet, saxophone, Julia Eckhardt, alto and Holocnemus pluchei