Whistle, Minotaure ! 08
by Francesco Cavaliere & Marcel Türkowsky

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

Grimmsueum, Berlin, Germany

15 July – 14 August 2011
Opening/Lecture by C.C. Hennix: Concept Art 50 Years Anniversary” 15 July 7 – 11 pm

Featuring: weekend concerts during the exhibition:

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 )

20 Eu
12 Eu (students)
limited seating (reservation recommended)
for booking and more informations
centonze@grimmuseum.com
0049(0)15112412524

“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, occationed 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 installation features two different soundinstallations in two
different spaces, Nadam Brahman (Healing Sound) and Soliton(e) Star/NUR.
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. The installations
and performances are going to be shown concurrently revealing a new level
of complex interactions between these distinct media. The show at the
Grimmuseum aims at giving a new generation of audience an opportunity to
become familiar with some of the basic ideas behind the Manhattan Down
Town School of LaMonte Young, Henry Flynt and herself.

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 visual-part is provided by the infinitely
on-going computer animation, NUR. The computer generated sound and
animation are both continuously on-going co-events during the opening
hours of the exhibition.

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.

Marcel Türkowsky http://marcel-turkowsky.blogspot.com
Whistle, Minotaure! http://grimmuseum.com/sound/sound.html