Sillyconductor / 100 Catronomes @ aestival ART ON DISPLAY
Sillyconductor / 100 Catronomes is the latest project part of aestival ART ON DISPLAY, a modern recreation of György Ligeti’s “Poème Symphonique”, on view at Musette Kube (114 Calea Victoriei Blvd., Bucharest) through September 18th, 2015. Whereas Ligeti employed 100 wooden metronomes set at different speeds, this version takes advantage of the inherently imperfect and unreliable nature of the cheap maneki neko’s internal mechanisms to provide rhythmic and tonal variations over time.
Placed on the red carpet, the army of golden maneki neko cats stare at their leader and follow its mechanical moves, yet desynchronized. This obsessive, repetitive and endless back and forth gesture reminds of human behavior and herd instinct, while also highlighting the imperfection and futility of the process.
100 Catronomes was also performed in Bucharest at the National Centre for Contemporary Dance during the “Sâmbăta Sonoră” listening sessions. “Sâmbăta Sonoră” also helped with the production part of the event.
About Sillyconductor
Sound designer, field recordist and sonic speed addict based in Bucharest, Sillyconductor has fun exaggerating classical music related devices and techniques. He has written music for films, animations, architectural mapping events, fashion shows, dance performances and created sound installations/objects. Among other things, he designed a multi-piano surround installation that would explore the upper limits of note reproduction, helped develop a software that generates 60 soundtracks per second, played USB fans through guitar pedals, adapted urban folklore to micro-tuned instruments and conducted an earthquake.
About ART ON DISPLAY
Initiated and organized by Ephemair Association, the ART ON DISPLAY project animates visually the city of Bucharest and transforms its appearance into a temporary art gallery, producing and presenting exhibitions and site specific installations in the shops window displays and other similar spaces with access from the main boulevards.
This approach to the urban space is a proposal for reflection on the aesthetic aspect of the city, thus forcing a dialogue with the excessive quantity of commercial advertisements which invades our daily life. The rhythm created by those artworks and artistic interventions in the city can generate a positive tension between the seductive images created by the market industry and the ones generated by the artists’ need to assert this very visible space.
Aestival ART ON DISPLAY will continue in Musette Kube space till mid of October 2015 and it will be followed between 15 – 25 of October by the second extended edition of AoD.
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Photos and video: The re:art
Read our review of aestival ART ON DISPLAY first exhibition.
Organizer: Ephemair Association (website/ Facebook, ephemair@gmail.com)
Partner: Musette
Media Partners: RFI, The re:art, Feeder.ro, Revista ARTA.