In concert

Abstract

In Concert explores the relationship between memory and the body, focusing on how memory is physically inscribed or embedded in habitual gestures. Music is a poignant example of this, as the rehearsal of a piece does not just result in it being memorised mentally but also corporeally. In Concert, a double-screen video installation shows a cellist and a pianist playing the first movement of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No 1 without their instruments. The music operates as a kind of ghostly mnemonic prompting their physically remembered gestures. A series of drawings entitled Pentagraphs was also produced: These represent the first seventeen bars of the cello part of Shostakovich's Concerto No. 1 for Cello in E-flat major (op. 107), 1959. It employs a method inspired by an 11th century musical notation/memorization system which was devised by Guido d'Arezzo to conduct. It uses the hand, assigning each part of every finger a specific note. In Concert was first shown in the exhibiton State of Mind at the LSE in London (May 2005). It has subsequently been shortlisted for a Swiss Art Award in 2006 and been exhibited at Lichfield Music Festival (July 2006) and in a solo show at Wings Projects Art Space in St Prex, Switzerland (September – October 2006).