Player Piano Player Weekend - Pavel Matveyev and Ricardo Atienza, 11-13 Oct 2019
Three days at Malongen: rich and diverse music experience
As a part of RISK(U) #3 residency at the Nordic Guest Studio (Malongen, Stockholm) we were invited to share and present our art and research project Player Piano Player. To that aim, we organised an exhibition that included three audiovisual installations. During three days we had public sessions with various musicians joining us, as well as pedagogic activities. Cello, guitar, oboe, trumpet, harmonica and even voice contributed to the rich and diverse music experience.
Player piano
The first installation was placed in the studio space of the apartment. There we set up an interactive installation with a large suspended projection screen and “speakers”, both based on translucent vinyl panels. In this interactive station, we invited all visitors to explore their musical skills by playing our virtual Piano Player. That was done to keep the music making democratic.
For the first time in this project we implemented an interactive visual installation based on the photographic documentation of one of the instruments from Klaverens Hus’ collection (a grand piano from 1920’s). These pictures captured professional pianist Silja Levander’s playing from various angles. An additional PureData patch was developed allowing to “toss” about a thousand images in real time, projecting them on the screen in synch with the sonic interface. This active visual presence provided a more physical connection to the instrument and to the embodied experience of playing.
Piano player
The second space, the apartment’s sitting room, was set up as a “listening station”: a hacked old radio was randomly mixing voices of piano owners and pieces they were playing.
A major focus of this project was to identify a role of the piano in a contemporary context. The piano can be seen as a metaphor for the declining analogue culture in the age of Spotify, when the consumption of music has never been so easy. We’ve met and interviewed a number of people who own pianos and asked them to share their experiences. This living archive represented the project’s context.
Sonatine
The third, most peaceful and relaxing installation, was arranged in the bedroom. The visitors could comfortably lie down and listen to a series of piano pieces (Sonatine) collectively produced with the interactive environment by previous participants and collaborators.
All the sonatine can be found in the playlist.
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Ricardo has been recently on the Spanish National Radio, talking about this work for an hour. You can listen to the program by following this link: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/la-casa-del-sonido/casa-del-sonido-pl...
To read more about this project: http://www.pavelmatveyev.com/html/playerpiano.html
With support from Konstnärsnämnden, Nordiska Konstförbundet, Konstfack and Klaverens Hus.
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Participating artists:
Henrik Eriksson
Jonatan Habib Engqvist
Leif Jordansson
Silja Levander
Robin McGinley
Francisco Vilaplana