Whistle, Minotaure!

Whistle, Minotaure ! 08 curated by Francesco Cavaliere & Marcel Türkowsky

Catherine Christer Hennix "7 Homotopies (How One Becomes The Other)" ...& Henry Flynt "Concept Art 50 Years Anniversary"

OPENING/Lecture by C.C. Hennix: Concept Art 50 Years Anniversary" 15 July 7 - 11 pm 15 July - 14 August 2011

Featuring: weekend concerts during the show:

The Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage performs

Blues Dhikr al- Salam (Blues al-Maquam) by Catherine Christer Hennix

16.07.2011 (6-9PM) ( saturday ) 23.07.2011 (6-9PM) ( saturday ) 31.07.2011 (4-7PM) ( sunday ) 06.08.2011 (6-9PM) ( saturday ) 14.08.2011 (4-7PM) ( sunday )

"The whole universe can be understood as just one single vibration. All atoms are continuously vibrating, the vacuum is vibrating, the whole cosmos is vibrating. When things vibrate, they generate these harmonics. Each harmonic is a state of nature. In physics, harmonics correspond to differnt states of matter. It´s empirical. As humans, we are reconfiguring them via the DNA molecule or whatever. When we hear these vibrations our system of molecules vibrates with them. You can think of sound as a medicinal tonic. You are exposed to sound as you are exposed to a liquid, and it may change your ground state, and you go from one state to another because you are exposed to this radiation of sound." CC Hennix.

This Summer C.C. Hennix and H. Flynt are making one of their rare expositions, occasioned by the 50th anniversity of the inception of Concept Art. The two simultanous exhibitions present "early works" by both artists; Flynt documents works from 1961 as facsimile and reconstructions while Hennix shows works from the '70s which were left out of her first installation, Toposes & Adjoints, Sthlm, 1976, for reasons of space limitations or lack of appropiate technology. These works belong to a modular array of installations excecuted in a range of multimedia and techniques: computer animation, sound environments, jet ink prints, wall paintings, soot, black light. This array, although superficially heterogenous, is unified by a series of "homotopies" which links one part with another as the result of the action of an "abstract" deformation which deforms one into another. Each homotpy on display problematizes the topological concept of homotopy, some radically - as in the Chaotic Homotopy (soot) or the Oscillating Null-homotopy (LCD, jet ink) where in both cases equivalence is interpreted as geometric identity which already, by itself, problematizes the concept of a "point", the basic element of any drawing or painting. The advanced visitor may discern more than seven homotopies on display.

The sound-part of this installation centers on a computer generated "soliton(e)" which behaves like a "soliton" - an example of an excitable medium which responds dynamically to vibrational variations in the environment as it travels forward in time, interacting with itself in the form of standing waves. The computer generated sound and animation are both continuously on-going co-events during the opening hours of the exhibition. Soliton (e) features an infinite computer animation, with a live performance of her recent composition Blues Dhikr al-Salam (2003- present) by her current Ensemble Choras(s)an Time-Court Mirage.

Hennix` Just Intonation ensemble Chorasan Time-Court Mirage will perform her recent modal composition Blues Al-Dhikr al-Salam (rememberence of divine equellibrium) which is situated in the intersection of raga-s, makam and blues and is written for voice, brass, sinewaves and live electronics with texts chosen from the Holy Koran. The composition will be performed within the soliton(e) sound environment. Playing at highly amplified levels through an electronic feedback system the musicians explore live the set of modal scales provided by the composition. Inside this bath of harmonics the musicians extract streams of tones triggering specific moods and mind states which are embedded within this sonic environment. As in previous works for ensemble by Hennix, "Blues Dhikr al-Salam " is strongly musician specific and its form is always determined by the collective contributions of the members of the Chorasan Time-Court Mirage. Five performances will take place during the 4 weeks of exhibition. This project is an addition to Hennix's series of "Infinitary Compositions", electronic compositions without a beginning or an end in the tradition originated by La Monte Young.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b.1948 - Stockholm) is an artist, poet, composer, and philosopher with a strong interest in logic, the foundations of mathematics and formal music theory.

Hennix has made two major installations (in Stockholm) at Moderna Museet,1976 (Brouwer's Lattice and Toposes & Adjoints, respectively) and at Stiftelsen Enkehuset, 1994 (La Seminaire II), and participated in group exhibitions at Emily Harvey Gallery New York/Venice 1988 - 2005, at the Fodor and Stedelijk Museums (Amsterdam), 1991, 1992, at the Belgrade Museum of Modern Art, 1993 and at Espace Donguy (Paris), 1995. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam, the Belgrade Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in major private collections.

Almost every major experimental composer of the 20th century argued that the essence of music is time (e.g. La Monte Young "Tuning is a function of time". By thinking music through mathematics and quantum physicis and eastern thought Hennix is one of the few composers who insists on a music of no time.

Catherine Christer Hennix & Henry Flynt
Whistle, Minotaure!
7 Homotopies (How One Becomes The Other) & Concept Art 50 Years Anniversary
Kuratoren: Francesco Cavalere & Marcel Türkowsky