Ganymedes II (Excerpt)

2022

For solo prepared electro-acoustic hurdy-gurdy and live electronics. Premiered by M.A. Tiesenga in 2022. No written score available.

about

This is an excerpt of a live performance of a larger 35-55 minute piece for solo electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy and live electronics. Ganymedes II was originally commissioned for a WildUp performance in 2022. It is a microtonal homage to the ascension / abduction of Ganymede by the Aetos Dios, the eagle of Zeus.

“Ganymedes [who] was the loveliest born of the race of mortals, and therefore the gods caught him away to themselves, to be Zeus' wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals.” Homer, Iliad 20. 232 ff

This piece is a part of a larger body of work that problematizes myth in astrology and its role in contemporary discourse and life through iterative, semi-improvisational performance. Compositional structure and motivic content is derived from gestural shape of the constellation (Ganymedes = Aquarius) while pitch content is derived partially from ratios collected from the stars' spatial relationships to each other, and partially from/within limitations of the instrument.

Wheel / Orb / Body is a new multimedia project that investigates the harmony and dissonance within various contradictions that can be held through the context of electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy and expanded notation. The project consists of a series of sound pieces illuminating different narratives of contradiction within and around science, pseudoscience, and divination.

I am drawn to the electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy as a primary tool in this project because I see similarities between the absurdity in its inherent existential contradiction and the contradictory absurdities we face in contemporary discourses. Horoscopic astrology flourishes in the turbulent hellscape of the post-truth era. While Wikipedia describes astrology as widely-recognized “pseudoscience,” Encyclopedia Britannica describes it as “divination” - I’m interested in seeing what inhabits the space between.

To quote Patrick Curry, “divination is a ritual (synchronically) and a tradition (diachronically) constituted by, and constituting, an ongoing dialogue with more-than-human agents. It is enacted in order to ask them for guidance and/or discern their will in the matter at hand, to enable them to respond, and to permit intelligible interpretation of the response. An indefeasible part of the ritual, following from those requirements, is an act of aleatory randomization,”(‘Embodiment, Alterity and Agency’ in Patrick Curry (ed.), Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp.114-5). According to this model, divination requires an active dialogue. 

In this context, the electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy is the perfect protagonist. I see the hurdy-gurdy as a new character in my explorations: as a time traveler, as a celestial resonance machine, and an oracle. Despite its complexity, its basic mechanics have remained the same for almost a thousand years. Used for generating sound in the era of music of the spheres, the vielle becomes a vehicle for scientific divination. The sound of the instrument that we hear today is not too different from the sounds that would have been heard resonating in monasteries centuries ago. It does not change, but the contexts surrounding it are perpetually in flux. What spirit phenomena was accessed with the assistance of the organistrum? What was the observed experience of this through time? Are these conduits still accessible? 

Ultimately, the information gleaned from astrology is derived from proportional relationships of the celestial bodies to each other as they move through the sky, relative to our position. The changing ratios of these proportions in relation to personified characteristics allotted to each of these values are the data sets from which astrologers infer meaning and insight. I use this principle in my compositions to derive ratios between frequencies or pitch centers, rhythm, and/or overarching compositional structure from horoscopic information correlating to specific places and times. Through this process, my work with astrological data points serves as a critique of truth by straddling the creative interstices between pseudoscience, science, and divination.

Our contemporary fascination with witchcraft is fed by a mistrust in the contextual processes of modern scientific research and the climate/humanitarian crimes committed in its name, made absurd by the fact that despite the accretion of scientific discovery, we are no closer to understanding (or agreeing upon) universal truths. Our knowledge of the mechanics of the world is a prosthetic knowledge - it is not a one we ourselves possess alongside a depth of discernment and application to complex concepts and fields, but one we decide to ultimately believe in. It represents a resignation or contentment with deep contradiction. Why not laud Hildegard Von Bingen, a pious saint/polymath of the high middle ages, as a subversive queer feminist hero despite all contextual evidence to the contrary, when she can be retroactively reimagined this way? Are we in dialogue with that spirit phenomena? Would her ghost wince at the (mis)appropriation of her narrative throughout the years to further various agendas? Or would she appreciate the whimsy of using the electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy to portray a harbinger of a post-post-truth via ambient performance? I believe that the answer to all of these questions can be “maybe.”