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34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Westminster
Christian Marclay Collaborations (2009-13)
EPHEMERA: a piece for solo piano by Christian Marclay, realised by Beresford. The ‘score’ is a series of large cards with photos of dozens of ephemeral objects using musical notation in their design.
EVERYDAY: a piece by Christian Marclay, realised by John Butcher, Mark Sanders, Alan Tomlinson, Marclay and Beresford, and other musicians including Suffolk Phoenix Brass. Found video footage, sometimes of instruments, directs the free improvisation.
PIANORAMA: a piece by Christian Marclay realised by Beresford, involving projection of prior piano improvisations video-recorded and edited by Marclay; the projection was onto a 360º ring of screens 18 metres in diameter, as part of a project by Ron Arad entitled Curtain Call. Beresford improvised a live piano accompaniment to the images of several versions of his hands on screen.
FREE IMPROVISATION: one-off free improvisation collaborations where the driving force is someone other than Christian Marclay, but with whom Marclay collaborates. One example gig is offered: Okkyung Lee, Marclay, Beresford and John Butcher at Cafe Oto in May 2011.
Please see portfolio for further documentation of research dimensions.
Beresford’s long-running collaboration with celebrated Swiss-American artist and musician, Christian Marclay, is based on free improvisation, but the pair also create pieces that are realisations of Marclay’s visual work. These four works are grouped together, not simply because they are collaborations with Marclay, but because they investigate overlapping aspects of a common research agenda: the dynamics of collaboration between a free improviser and a visual artist/composer. For Beresford, the events provide fertile ground to explore the shifting nature of the collaborative process and the degree of negotiation involved within it. 'Ephemera' is a series of 28 folios based on ideographic scores – visual material referencing music notation in some way. The player/s are asked to interpret the sometimes nonsensical notation - Marclay himself not reading music. 'Everyday' uses found video footage – sometimes of instruments, sometimes of musical referencing – to the same effect, though it includes more of a physical link from images to the sound being produced: brass bands on screen precede the surprise arrival of a real brass band marching through the auditorium. Ownership of the music has never been an issue, but the nature of the collaboration shifts from piece to piece. With 'Everyday', for example, Marclay states specifically what he wants and ‘directs’ the performance in subtle ways. The process involves rehearsal so Beresford finds himself drawn into some unexpected musical terrain. In contrast, with 'Ephemera', Beresford selects the folios and delivers an unrehearsed performance, with no intervention from Marclay. 'Pianorama' is different again in that Beresford’s live performance was a response to his own music (which Marclay had recorded and edited) and the visual image of his own gigantic hands. With each performance, the blend of Marclay’s non-musical, visual compositional style and Beresford’s improvisational ‘voice’ continues to evolve.
