video documentation : vimeo.com/501155928

multimedia installation: 12 loudspeakers, 4 TV screens, 12 mirrors; 7-minute loop

28.09.2020,Kaskadenhalle, Toni-Areal, Zürich

Conception and realization: Raphaël Belfiore (with support from M.Seidenberg and C.Pavan)


Sub Specie is a multimedia installation conceived as a set of personal "concert stations" consisting of a mirror
and a loudspeaker. Screens are placed at each corner of the space. They broadcast in a loop sets of texts
about "traditional" conceptual music pieces, of which they seek to convey a certain "essence" through texts of
three types:
— the scores of the works in question when they are verbal, or their descriptions by their creators when their
prescriptions/notations exist in other forms.
— additional remarks by composers justifying or rationalizing their creations.
— testimonials or analytical remarks made by third parties about the works.
Information concerning the texts is transmitted under three competing aspects of a (admittedly broad)
definition of the musical work: "what it is", "what it means" and "what is perceived and/or understood".
Each group of texts is "recited" through a specific loudspeaker. However, instead of being transmitted by
reproductions of the human voice, the spoken texts articulate, via a vocoder, a sound specific to each work:
the totality of the frequencies played simultaneously from one of its recordings — a version of the document
without duration. The spectator is then able to represent, albeit in an approximate way, the works not only
thanks to the different information transmitted through screens and mirrors, but also thanks to their sonic
profile.
However, the texts presented are only readable clearly through the mirrors, which perform different functions.
They serve as a meeting point between the metaphorical and literal aspects of the work and materialize its
abstract structure: The origin of various types of content is transmitted through a medium decoding and
allowing only an isolated fraction of what is presented to be perceived.
The title of the installation is a reference to the pair of philosophical expressions (notably developed in
Spinoza's Ethics): "sub specie æternitatis" (under the angle / form / aspect of eternity) and "sub specie
durationis" (under the angle / form / aspect of duration) which refer to different ways of perceiving the actuality
of a thing: on the one hand in a universal and eternal sense, independent of contingent spatial and temporal
conditions, and on the other by considering the latter, adopting a more "internal" perspective on situations.
In Sub specie I am interested in the implications of this alternative in music. A musical work can be considered
as universal, timeless and ideal, as well as as a particular, taking into account the whole situation around the
occurrences of a work. The question of documentation then arises, i.e., what sould or can be conveyed of
what music "really" is.
Here, conceptual music is used as a borderline case because the status of the work’s essence is unclear. For
example, in contrast to an occurence of free improvisation, of which it seems that nothing of its essence can
be expressed in words, conceptual or verbal works have the particularity of being perhaps only ideas (as
opposed to feelings or intuitions) that have sonic consequences. What is "the music" might then be
transmitted without traditional sonic documentation.
However, this is not an unambiguous conclusion, as can be seen in many of the testimonials included in the
installation. It is quite clear that the "situation" itself remains as non-transmissible as before. Rather, it is a
question of its relevance. In any case, the traditional approach to documentation seems in both cases
insufficient and misleading. Sub specie is an attempt to transmit only what is "really" transmissible, to
demonstrate "medial responsibility" in the one case (conceptual music) where it seems to be possible.

featured works:

Ablinger, A Letter from Schönberg / Brecht, Motor Vehicle Sundown (Event) / Cage, 4’33’’ / Cage, Rozart Mix /
Johnson, The Chord Catalogue / Klein, Symphonie Monotone-Silence / Kreidler, Fremdarbeit / Ligeti, Poème
Symphonique / Lucier, Music for Solo Performer / Marclay, Graffiti Composition / Oliveros, "The Tuning
Meditation" / Reich, Pendulum Music / Tenney, Maximusic / Walshe, THIS IS WHY PEOPLE OD ON PILLS /
Wolff, Stones / Young, Composition 1960 #7


(Track art is a picture by Maxine Vulliet)