This Saturday, I'm performing my new work "Writing in Water, Singing the Clouds" at Notam. It's a new piece commissioned by Nuts and Bolts, in which I've been diving into slow shifting harmonics and beatings, organ pipes as oscillators and my first time building an instrument. The event starts at 18:00, with a performance by Busy Gangnes & Cory Arcangel at 18:30, followed by my piece at 19:00. Early start, free entry, low stakes.
Beautiful poster by my friend Zarina Saidova
In the process of this work, there has been a lot of doubt and second guessing. To make an instrument shifts between fun, frustrating and familiar, like making a piece of music that reveals what I could have made instead.
So, it became a meditation: on what is actually here, what is inevitably not static, but constantly in movement and a work to-be-made. Trying again. Returning to what I have. I've been reading "Transcendence for beginners" by Clare Carlisle along the way, a beautiful book about life writing, living and working, meditation and dedication. It's soft-spoken and yet full of profound and beautiful existential thoughts. It helped me slow my pace and not worry too much about all the things I don't know how to do, but rather see what I have, and where it can lead me: "Every path is a combination of following and choosing, and choosing whom to follow, and following other's choices. Every path is some combination of finding and making."
I got a lot of help from my friends Einar (Stiv Heks), Niklas, Torstein, and indirectly from the work of heroes Amina , Linnéa and Jo David — I'm so grateful to have people around me who generously share their insight and experience, hoping I can do the same when someone needs it.
And I’m so lucky to be residing at the Musicology Department at UiO this month! It’s a luxury to have access to a super office, amazing studios and wonderful, clever people. I will hold a presentation here on the 24th of April, talking about the process. The commission is funded by Kulturdirektoratet. Thank you to all of these partners & people for making this work possible!