“One, Two, 3: a-Musical” 2020
The Gardeners Bothy, Studio Pavillion at House for an Art Lover, Bellahouston Park, Glasgow
Birch ply, steel bar, rubber mallets, contact microphones, dimensions variable
“One, Two, 3: a-Musical” aims to engage with the audience in juxtaposing the instinctive intentionality in musical interpretation and activity with the goal-driven nature of language as a communicative medium. The work explores the linguistic character and perceived meaning of music through the autonomous nature of the elements which make up its form.
The tuning fork is used as a paradoxical symbol which embodies both the autonomous nature of the individual elements which which make up musical form and the self-referential character of music more generally in the sense that it emits a ‘pure tone’ which is only pure in reference to tone itself but is at the same time a referential tool paramount to the development of modern music.
