Reviews today looks at Entanglement Witnessas part of the Maltings, Kilkenny Arts Festival and Fergal Caulfield(organ) at St Michael's Church, Dún Laoghaire
Entanglement Witness
The Maltings, Kilkenny Arts Festival
According to theatre director Anne Bogart, "to observe" isn't a passive verb. For her to observe is to disturb, just like in quantum physics where the act of observation alters the thing observed. It's a concept that finds perfect definition in choreographer Cindy Cummings and composer Todd Winker's installation, Entanglement Witness, where the presence of the viewer changes what is viewed.
Within the darkened gallery, a triangle of video screens play a 30-minute loop of moving images from nature or technology, and Cummings appears on screen, inviting the public into the triangle with a beckoning hand. Once inside the triangle, infra-red cameras sense the individual's presence and alters the imagery and sound. These are both balming - shimmering New England red leafs against a blue sky - or frenetically digitised, like shots of Cummings in quivering and stuttering movements.
Winkler's soundscape is similar: unabrasive electronic sweeps that, at one point during the half-hour, gather into a bone-shaking cyclone of white noise.
At certain times, the infra-red cameras capture images of the viewers and feed these onto the screens, blending the blurry outlines of the audience with the performers. Cummings' presence onscreen is like an avatar - the embodiment of the computer user or artist in a virtual world - and as the viewer's digital shadow joins her on the screen, both artist and audience have come together in this virtual space.
Although the observers disturb the performance, they don't take over, and Cummings and Winkler keep a firm hand on what is open to change. Not only does this help retain their voice, but it also creates a welcome ambiguity where the viewer isn't always quite aware how they are controlling events. At these times one can just give way to the beauty of the images. This ability to remain off-screen and immerse oneself in the calm environment means that the installation rewards even the most perfunctory of interactions.
Until Sunday. MICHAEL SEAVER
Fergal Caulfield (organ)
St Michael's Church, Dún Laoghaire
Bach Prelude in E flat BWV 552/I
Georg Muffat Toccata Nona in E minor; Toccata Duodecima in B flat
Couperin Messe pour les paroisses (exc)
Messiaen Messe de la Pentecôte
Organist Fergal Caulfield gave the proverbial concert of two halves as the summer-long St Michael's recital series continued on Sunday night.
He devoted the first half to the baroque, starting with an appealingly brisk-paced account of the Prelude in E flat that opens Bach's organ collection Clavier-Übung III.
He followed this with two pieces by Georg Muffat, always enthusiastically included in textbooks as one of the midwives at the birth of the baroque concerto grosso, but, sadly, less likely to be programmed in an ensemble concert than in an organ recital.
Caulfield chose two toccatas which, characteristically for Muffat, were multi-part pieces ranging widely from imitative counterpoint to a freer, fantasy style interspersed with contrasting sections in a quiet, more reflective mood.
In these latter moments, Caulfield judiciously deployed a flexible approach to tempo while overall sustaining continuity despite the stop-go nature of the music.
The Muffat pieces were published in Salzburg in 1690, the same year that François Couperin published his only two works for organ. Of these, Caulfield played the Benedictu- featuring wind-stops in much decorated solo lines - and the jaunty gigue-like Offertoirefrom the Messe pour les paroisses.
The segue across the centuries from one Parisian organist to another - Olivier Messiaen - was the portal into Caulfield's dramatically different universe for the second half.
Messiaen's 1951 Messe de la Pentecôteis music distilled from 20 years of improvising at the organ at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité where he played four times every Sunday.
Caulfield gave a gripping tour-de-force in music that stretches the king of instruments and ranges from unabashed bottom notes like fog-horns to Messiaen's beloved bird-song to a spooky, cinematic horror motif for "things visible and invisible" to the vast, calorie-rich harmonies familiar from the Turangalîla- symphonie. MICHAEL DUNGAN
