|
Christophe Charles has a long list of installations, collaborations,
and concerts to his credit. In recent years he has worked mostly as
a musician, but for this exhibition he has gone back to the foundation
of his work and created a soundscape installation.Charles once said
that his work was meant to direct people's attention "more to
the sounds outside than" to those in the composition itself.
If this is true, this would mean that the composition itself if a
kind of device that works as a catalyst to make outside sounds easier
to hear. The composition functions to incorporate the surrounding
environment and the outside.This reminds one, for example, of John
Cage's 1952 work <4'33"> which is still remembered and
will long continued to be referenced as a monument in music history.
This four minutes and thirty-three seconds "soundless" piece,
if it is to be considered music, is one in which the performer is
silent. And along with that silence the listeners are made to hear
"sounds outside" without relying on conventional performance.
With the release of <4'33" [No.2] (0'00") >in 1962,
this <4'33"> loses even the structure of time that was
so important to the concept of composition. But this time the work
is converted to the listener's operation of perceiving the moment
and can theoretically be repeated at any time. This means that from
within daily activities, or following on silence, sounds will emerge.The
term "undirected" which appears so often in the titles of
Charles' works refers to the fact that the focus is not set. Sound
spaces woven from computer-controlled samplers and images without
any focus so that one can pay attention to anything and everything
are realizations of what Charles calls "inter penetration without
obstruction." The work arises from sounds and images produced
at random by computer and the indefinite elements of audience and
place. None of them become independent or complete, and there is no
compunction. This makes possible an ideal form of interactivity.
(HATANAKA Minoru / Assistant Curator, ICC)
|
|