Logical Conclusions

Durational performance artwork for solo performer with canvas, paint, environmental sound, and live electronics.
Live-scored, 16 hours duration.

Program Notes

Logical Conclusions (2021) interrogates the role of the staved score in canonical art-music, problematising the fixity of notation and the correlations often drawn between a score’s complexity and its conceptual or artistic merit. Throughout the extended performance-art installation, a large canvas bears witness to a gruelling live-scoring process. Excerpts from well-known historical compositions of increasing complexity are painted/stamped by hand onto the large staves, accompanied by recordings of those works. The combined sound of the scoring process (marking edges with masking tape, mixing/applying paint, etc.), environmental noise (birdsong, traffic, brief conversations, etc.), and musical playback are then themselves recorded and fed back into the environment throughout the duration of the performance. Running on a twenty-minute loop, these live electronics transform recognisable musical fragments into a distorted, ethereal texture; the live-scored soundtrack becomes increasingly cacophonous as the canvas fills with densely overlapping notational practices. Eventually, Mvt 18 (Tutti ) sees the canvas painted entirely black, and the sound become “pure” noise. In Mvt. 19 (Denouement ), the canvas is painted back to white, ready for another performance of Logical Conclusions .

The first performance of Logical Conclusions lasted sixteen hours. Originally intended for performance on-campus at Monash University (Naarm/Melbourne, Aust.), Covid-19 lockdown restrictions meant that the performance actually took place in my tiny backyard in Brunswick. The timelapse documentation of Logical Conclusions is 10:20min long and features excerpts from the iterative 20-minute loop of accumulating live electronics which ran throughout the performance.

"Movements" (Featured Compositions)

Timestamps are provided for the above video, a ~10-minute timelapse of the 16-hour performance.

Mvt. 0: Blank Canvas  [00:05]

Mvt. 1: Dots on Lines  [01:00]

Ludwig van Beethoven, Ode to Joy, 1822-24.
Performed by Igor Levitt, 2021.

Maurice Ravel, Bolero, 1928.
Performed by the Wiener Philarmoniker, 2010.

Sergei Prokofiev, La Danse des Chevaliers, 1935.
Performed by The Royal Ballet, 2019.

Johann Pachelbel, Kanon D-dur, 1680.
Performed by the Brooklyn Duo, 2019.

Frédéric Chopin, Prelude in E Minor, 1839.
Performed by Eric Lu, 2015.

W.A. Mozart, Rondo Alla Turca, 1783.
Performed by Marnie Laird, 2018.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture, 1880.
Performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, 2011.

John Coltrane, Giant Steps, 1960 (2020 remaster).

Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, 1913.
Performed by the LA Philharmonic, 2019.

George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, 1924.
Performed by Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic, 1967.

Arnold Schoenberg, Drei Klavierstücke, 1909.
Performed by Pi-hsien Chien, 2016.

Anton Webern, Op. 21, 1927-28.
Performed by Staatskapelle Dresden, 2016.

John Cage, Solo for Piano, 1958.
Performed by Philip Thomas, 2020.

Anthony Heinrich, Toccata Grande Cromatica, 1825.
Performed by Artis Wodehouse, 2012.

Henry Cowell, Tiger, 1930.
Performed by Ken Gartner, 2015.

Score excerpt found on online forum, unknown source.
Audio only: Brian Ferneyhough, Lemma-Icon-Epigram, 1981.
Performed by Marino Formenti, 2015.

Cornelius Cardew, Treatise, 1967.
Performed by Shawn Feeney, 2013.