Description:
The Insight Fortepiano project explores the dynamic relationship between image and sound perception. Piano improviser– Aki Hoffmann
Accompanying a film or a theatre performance, music traditionally plays a secondary role, usually following the visual development. In the opera, or today’s music videos, visual sequence follows the music. Aleksandra focuses on the most musical of instruments, reveals its hidden physical aspects through images – both for the musician and his audience.
The performance explores architecture of acoustics with three small video cameras put inside the instrument. They film from three different angles and transmit the image first to a computer where the video becomes monochrome with high contrast, and then to a screen in front of the musician. It allows him to observe and control the images during his improvisation, creating a graphic drawing that changes under the influence of music. Sometimes it resembles a moonscape, a wide field, a city from afar, or outlines of strange people or animals.
Choice of camera angles and manipulations of light, colour and contrast of images with a mixer board creates a film. And the musician translates musical harmony and rhythm into image, coordinating his movements with the visualization. Thus, the artist and the musician work in one synchronized effort.
