Marc Silver

'Ageless Sex' - screening tonight in London

‘Ageless Sex’ - screening tonight in London at ‘Short & Sweet’, Cafe 1001, 91 Brick Lane, E1 ..

A review of 'en masse' at the Adelaide Festival by Erin Keys

Ushered in to a darkened room in a single line, as if to enter a ride at a theme park, the audience is seated on cushions laid in a wide circle. I lay back and rest my head against the soft backing. I’m breathing out the week, legs stretched and enjoying the bestowed gift of anonymity in the dark. The room falls silent, I feel relaxed, alone, even though I am surrounded. I am comfortable, I feel gentle in my body; I stop.

Projected on to a floating backdrop I am taken in to the tunnel of my thoughts, I’m lead to thoughts about death, the anxiety I have held on to fades and I am thinking that perhaps this is the space I am in when it happens. Should one be so lucky to know that they are dead and they could get to wander through a landscape of sunrise and sunset calmly until they understand ‘death’! Thoughts alternate and perhaps this is some type of hell? Am I stuck? The realising that you have passed in between the living and the dying without any more days to wake to. I think, did I appreciate my life, did I spend each day eating the landscape, or experiencing ‘happy’? The discord that runs between the parallel landscapes that is night and day. The wondering ‘where am I’?

en masse is part concert, part film, part installation and the creation of renowned recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey and filmmaker Marc Silver. I hardly want to write too much lest I say too much! It is an experiential piece, by which I mean – you really need to go, and sit, and watch, and listen, and go on your own trip. We can be amongst many and watch, but you won’t feel or think what I feel or think. In some ways it is like koyaanisqatsi translating as ‘Life out of Balance’ a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Phillip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.

en masse is a performance piece that came about from experiences and ideas based within nature. Silver says ‘We wanted to make a world that would hold you, yet one that also gives you space’. The music began as a series of improvisations and was responded to by six sound artists. Musical collaborators include John Rodgers Christian Fennesz, DJ Olive, Nico Muhly, Ben Frost, Steve Adam and Taylor Deupree. Each with a variety of experience, some working alongside Phillip Glass and Bjork, classical composers and others with the experimental fusion of sound, photography and architecture. The combination of Lacey, whose repertoire spans ten centuries, and the computer generated sounds creates an atmosphere of altering transformations that are unique to each performance. Redefining it as ‘electrocoustic’ they are able to wrap the audience in sound and movement.

This is a sensual experience and without being overt, en masse addresses themes like the impact of globalisation, individualism and consumerism. The subtle message of order in chaos is alluded to through the projected imagery of birds. The piece is as much about space as it is about the sound and the image, as well as, the collaborators and audience working together en masse. I don’t want to say anymore, because I really think it deserves what can only come from first hand experience. A refreshing piece that although is perfect at 30 minutes long, I wanted to indulge in the space for longer, as if returning to the mother’s womb – I did not want to leave to face the chaos that is life.

Behind the scenes of 'EN MASSE' concert/film/installation

Screening at the Unsound festival, Krakow

‘There Are No Others, There Is Only Us’ is being shown as part of the Systems exhibition which explores the idea of borders and political, sociological and cultural systems, including the legacy of communism. It is about transition, change, positive forms of globalisation and rebellion - especially in terms of how they relate to music and culture. (19>25th October). The film can be experienced with the 9-minute film soundtrack made by Ben Frost, or with one of three commissioned alternate soundtracks made by Jacaszek (PL), Tomasz Bednarczyk (PL) and Denis Kolokol (UA).
Here’s a link to photos of the launch night.

New installation test images

'Habit Bag' to be exhibited in London

DIY LONDON SEEN at Unit 11, The Market Building, Covent Garden.
An exhibition documenting the work of, and inspired by, the Artists featured in Aaron Rose’s ‘Beautiful Losers’. The exhibition will coincide with the film’s UK release at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and its subsequent DVD release.
The show ‘DIY London Seen’ brings together twenty young Artists, whose work encapsulates a similar naivety, freedom and energy to that of the original ‘Beautiful Losers’, and a shared willing to create art for art’s sake. Whether they be painters, photographers, illustrators, sculptors or filmmakers, the Artists have in common an inbuilt passion to produce work that is neither defined by the art market, nor any factor other than the desire to express their innate creativity; reflecting the society they inhabit and the emotions they experience, through their preferred artistic medium.

Premiere at Supersonic festival

Premiering at Supersonic, 24th-26th July Birmingham, UK “There are no others, there is only us”.
Here’s a lovely review by Michael Wallace-Pigott ...

The first thing we see on arrival in Birmingham is a free installation piece at Moor St. Station entitled There Are No Others, There Is Only Us. This open, airy station (more a big iron, glass and brick canopy than a building) is a surprisingly great location for work like this. Having already read some promotional stuff I had imagined it to be some sort of unavoidable large screen piece, to be experienced by those passing through the station whether interested or not. However, it was in fact separated from the main thoroughfare, enclosed in its own temporary tent.

Inside, on a heap of fat nylon beanbags, we watched as a wide white screen slowly filled with thousands of specks. The first few seconds are minimal and slow enough to remain abstract, but the complex flowing patterns of dark dots against a bright white background soon reveal themselves to be flocks of birds dipping and turning in frightening synchronisation. These bird formations undulate and flow like globular oil blobs in a lava lamp. Their fluid mass movements are both monstrous and beautiful at the same time. They swarm like bees, an unusual association that abuses my understanding of birds. The film asks obvious questions: do you move with the crowd, or stand out? And how do you understand yourself inside or outside of the mass of human life? But it achieves much more interesting effects also.

The visual component is directed by Marc Silver, while the music is composed by Ben Frost. These elements work extremely well together – the deep, sometimes atonal strings seem to come in waves, rejecting recognisable rhythm or time signature to sound like the random throb of a natural force, synchronous with the movement and density of the birdwaves. At least they seem synchronous, but then it may also be playing on the intrinsic tendency of the human sensorium to yoke sound and image together, to see causation and connection where there may not in fact be any. At points I am unsure whether it is more a case of the music sonifying the movement of the birds, or the movement visualising the music, and this, I think, is the greatest success of the piece.

Another pleasurable thing about this installation is the setting. Though enclosed and dark enough to produce a clear contrasty image, air moves freely in and out of the tent, and several light leaks remind one that it’s a sunny day outside. Splayed out on the beanbags (and I couldn’t find any other way to use them) one’s proximity to the concrete floor makes the smell and feel of the platform part of the experience. When the throbbing and groaning of the strings subsides the chugging of trains just outside fades in. It was for me a wonderfully surprising and productive melding of place and piece.

Launch of Michael Nyman's exhibition 'Distractions'

Having worked with Michael over the last 2 years curating his personal collection of video art the works are being presented at the Sketch Gallery in London at the end of April until mid June.

Working with composer Ben Frost in Iceland

The incredibly amusing and inspiring Ben Frost composed the music for my experimental film / video installation ‘There are no others, there is only us’. Here’s a few photos i took whilst mooching around Iceland!

Filming half a million starlings in Denmark

I spent the week filming this awesome & humbling site for a video installation exploring crowds and hierarchy called ‘There are no others, there is only us’.

A Message to my Unconceived Child

Some images from my exhibition at the Centro de Arte in Burgos, Spain
(some images by Lou Mensah).