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Series and PlaceM. J. Grant

Version of record first published: 17 May 2012

To cite this article: M. J. Grant (2011): Series and Place, Contemporary Music Review, 30:6,525-542

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2011.676899

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Series and PlaceM. J. Grant

The phrase ‘site-specific music’ is commonly used to describe developments in music since

the latter part of the twentieth century in which the exact environment chosen is integralto the conception of the piece or the installation. In this essay, I shall argue that the

alternative term ‘place-specific music’ may help describe one of the most importantcharacteristics of many pieces and projects by Wandelweiser composers: a relationship tothe place of performance which is rarely a predetermining factor in the structure of the

piece, but which arises from the composers’ and performers’ own predilection forparticular types of performance space, and the dynamic and temporal structure typical of

the Wandelweiser aesthetic. In this regard, I will also explore the role of the principle ofseries in this music. The essay will focus particularly but not exclusively on the composer

Carlo Inderhees, and especially the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1Skulptur, which he realized together with the artist Christoph Nicolaus.

Keywords: Inderhees; place; series; time; Wandelweiser

Series

When two elements—such as objects, events and tones—are positioned in relation toeach other, the dynamic that results is not only more than the sum of its parts: it also

transforms how we perceive the elements themselves. What kind of dynamic iscreated depends on how exactly the elements are positioned and on the nature of the

elements themselves: this is the principle behind all artistic forming processes. If theelements are positioned in such a way that they continue to be perceived as individualelements, and not only in their conjunction with other elements—for example, when

there is still a clear boundary between them—then the overall impression isprofoundly different from an arrangement in which they touch on each other

directly. Two or more pictures, separately framed, yet conceptually bound togetherand exhibited as such, have a different impact on each other and on us than any one

of the pictures seen on its own. Two or more events in a piece of music, sounding forthemselves, separated either through long rests or through a very significant

Einsatzabstand between each event, are more likely to be perceived as series of eventsrather than a movement, or a melody, or a gesture.

Contemporary Music ReviewVol. 30, No. 6, December 2011, pp. 525–542

ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) ª 2011 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2011.676899

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The word ‘series’, in this context, is clearly not to be confused with its more normal

musicological usage, namely in connection with serial music or serielle Musik. Instead,it refers here to a concept applied to the visual arts long before music and describes

any one of a number of approaches in which individual elements are subject to—andexpressions of—a unifying ordering principle applied to each of them in turn, and

thus subject to repetition.1 Precursors of this principle can be found, inter alia, inPaul Cezanne’s paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, a subject to which he returnedthroughout his artistic career: though not intended as a series, viewing these paintings

together only increases our awareness of the features and the details of each, and ofhow Cezanne’s style develops, becoming increasingly abstract, and gradually

darkening from the green-fawn-white of the early depictions to the blue and purpletones of the last. A linear development of this kind is, however, only one of the

possible forms a series can take. Later, the principle of repetition would beimplemented more consciously in the work of artists as different as Frank Stella,

Roman Opalka, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, amongst many others. For example, theBechers’ photographic series of monuments to industrial life, such as Wasserturme(Water Towers, 1998), are displayed together in a limited space—as a unit made up of

several units. By placing the photographs together in this way, seemingly trivialfeatures of each object photographed are cast in a new light, precisely because of the

repetition of both principle and subject in the other photographs exhibited.Because it has to do with repetition, series is always a temporal category: this is as true

of the visual arts as it is music, that art which aestheticians persist in naming the moretruly temporal. And although there are some similar procedures in earlier musical

composition, it is probably in the music of many composers associated with theWandelweiser group—particularly music written in the late 1990s—in which this

principle of series is most consciously reflected in compositional terms. There are threeseparate and related levels on which this occurs. First, series is used as a formal principlewithin individual pieces, typically by interspersing sound events of a particular and

generally identical length with rests also of predefined length. Second, there are alsoseries of pieces, each piece in the series generally abiding to the same structural

principles as the others. And on a third and higher level yet, there are often series ofperformances. Here, I am thinking not so much of the long-running series of concerts

organized by, inter alia, Antoine Beuger in Dusseldorf, Jurg Frey in Aarau andChristoph Nicolaus in Munich, but performance projects conceived in such a way that

the time and the place of the performance, the regularity of the occurrence over a longeror shorter period of time, and thus the very act of attendance, become part of theconcept, and an integral part of the experience. This, then, brings us to a second and

related category that becomes clearly focused in Wandelweiser projects, namely place.

Place

The term ‘place’, as I use it here, can best be understood by relating it to two otherterms: ‘site’ (particularly in the context of ‘site-specific art’ and ‘site-specific

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music’), and ‘place’ and ‘non-place’ as used in sociological and anthropological

literature.‘Site-specific music’ is the term generally used to describe music where the location

in which the music sounds is integral to the composition, or itself is ‘composed’through the music; it therefore describes one of the most important developments in

musical composition since around the last quarter of the twentieth century.2 Manysound installations fall into this category, and generally speaking, there are probablymore examples of site-specific music that take the form of installations than that rely

on live performance, despite many examples that integrate elements of both(including installations which react to the presence or input of visitors). An

important feature of site-specific music is therefore the lack of a clear boundarybetween the composition and the space. This is quite different from more

conventional concert-hall situation: concert halls are designed for the purposes ofthe music, rather than the other way around.3

In some recent literature in sociology and anthropology, the term ‘place’ takes on acentral role. Examples include Manuel Castells’ discussion of the Parisian suburbBelleville (1996, pp. 423–425), and particularly Marc Auge’s (1996) discussion of

what he calls non-places.4 In each case, a ‘place’ is marked by a strong connection to(personal) history, belonging, rootedness, and what in English would be called ‘local

colour’. ‘Non-places’, logically, are lacking in this. We can see the distinction betweenplaces and non-places clearly if we contrast, say, a weekly market or a local pub with

what Auge would term a transit space, such as an airport. For what colour springs tomind when we think of an airport? Perhaps something grey and non-distinct, or even

transparency—the ultimate absence of colour, just as glass is the ultimate buildingmaterial of postmodernity: see-through, and with only borrowed substance.

Places often play an important role in Wandelweiser music, but in a quite differentsense to the manner in which locations become a topic in site-specific music. For inthe Wandelweiser case, there is rarely a conscious integration of acoustic,

architectonic, or historical aspects of the location into the compositional processand the music that results. There is a tendency, however, towards choosing

performance spaces with a stronger character than most concert venues, and likewiseto resisting the form of the concert as well. This is far from unusual in experimental

music, not least for pragmatic reasons: dilapidated churches generally come withlower costs attached than concert halls, and the projects I will discuss below are only

some of the very many which made these and similar spaces the natural habitat ofhomo musicus experimentus in Berlin and elsewhere around this time. Thecharacteristics of much Wandelweiser music do however mean that in this case

particularly, our consciousness of the surrounding space is heightened. The spaceschosen are rarely empty, but instead full of their own character and by no means

filled by the music. More often, it seems, the music lodges quietly in the room for ashort period and carries out an almost incidental dialogue with it.

The role of place in this music can go even further, however. Several performanceprojects by composers and musicians associated with the Wandelweiser group are

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based on the premise not of music written for a particular site, but of series of

performances at regular intervals in specific performance spaces over a longer orshorter period of time. Shorter scale projects that conform to this model include a

collaboration between Jurg Frey and the late artist Mauser in the KunstraumDusseldorf in 2002, a project later documented in an edition produced by the Berlin

gallery and performance space, complice.5 Many projects by the ensemble incidentalmusic, whose core members include the composer Manfred Werder and the flautistNormisa Pereira da Silva, also favour the format of performances at set times over

several days or weeks.6 The most consistent use of this approach can however be seenin two projects conceived and implemented by the composer Carlo Inderhees and the

artist Christoph Nicolaus, namely garonne (24) fur sich and 3 Jahre—156 musikalischeEreignisse—1 Skulptur.

garonne (24) fur sich (1997) is a series of twenty-four pieces for cello (with thecollective title fur sich) to be performed—in any order—alongside a varying selection

of videos from the series garonne by Christoph Nicolaus. The performances are to takeplace over the course of twenty-four days. Each piece lasts one hour, and the startingtimes of each performance progress by one hour on each consecutive day, starting at

midnight: in other words, on the first day the performance begins at midnight, on thesecond day at 1 a.m., and so on until the final day, when the performance begins at 11

p.m. and concludes where the series started, at midnight. Each of the twenty-fourpieces is based on the same principle: a single, complex multiphonic sound, which is

different in each piece, is played for a total of thirty minutes, with the remaining thirtyminutes consisting of a rest or rests. In each piece, sound and silence are interspersed

at exactly regular, periodic intervals, these varying from piece to piece: in some pieces,every occurrence of the sound and every occurrence of the silence last one minute

each, in other pieces ten minutes, and in some pieces a whole half an hour of sound isfollowed by a whole half an hour in which the cellist plays nothing at all. The videoinstallations are selected from films made by Nicolaus of different rivers, the camera

being placed directly over the river and remaining static for the duration. The videostherefore show nothing more than a continually flowing stream of water, without

sound, and interrupted only by the occasional leaf, or duck.The first performance of garonne (24) fur sich took place in the parish hall of the

Sophienkirche in Berlin in the summer of 1998; further performances have, to date,taken place in Dusseldorf in 2001 and Munich in 2003. The project is closely related

to another, entitled simply garonne . fur sich, which contains exactly the samematerial (the cello pieces and the videos) but without the obligation to perform thepieces over twenty-four consecutive days—it is possible to play only one from the

series. However, garonne . fur sich too is a temporally and continuously progressingseries, which started at midnight on the day of the first performance of garonne (24)

fur sich and is still running. When cellists wish to play from fur sich, they cantherefore pick any single day or any number of consecutive days, but the performance

on the day chosen must start at the time that coincides with that particular day in thecalendar.

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The second project by Inderhees and Nicolaus—which preceded garonne (24) fur

sich in its conception—is arguably both the most well-known and also the mostinfluential. The influence of 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1 Skulptur is

related to the scale and above all the duration of this project, which presented aunique social frame for a relatively small but heterogeneous community of listeners

who, at one time or another, participated. In order to better understand the relatedroles of series and place in the work of the Wandelweiser group, there is therefore nobetter place to start than the parish church of Zion in central Berlin.

Zionskirche

There are at least two ways of introducing the project 3 years—156 musical events—1

sculpture. First, there are descriptions of the type I have used in several texts writtenon and around this project over the years:7 every Tuesday evening from the beginning

of 1997 until the end of 1999, a ten-minute long musical event for one performer waspremiered in the Zionskirche in Berlin. The performances took place beside asculpture made up of ninety-six bore stones, the positions of two of which were

swapped weekly (in advance of the performances) according to chance operations.These changes, as well as details of the performances, the number of visitors, the

temperature in the church and the degree of sunlight, were documented by theorganizers.

Alternatively, there is this description, from the concept for the project asoriginally conceived by Inderhees and Nicolaus:

Ein Zeitraum wird konstituiertdurch regelmaßige Veranderungen.

Ein Ort wird konstituiertdurch regelmaßige Veranderungen.

[A period of time is constitutedthrough regular changes.

A place is constitutedthrough regular changes.]8

The documentation for the project goes into further detail as to how exactly thisZeitraum and Ort are to be constituted:

Within a time period of three years, a sequence (Folge) is established.

The elements in the succession each last 168 hours and succeed one anotherdirectly. At the beginning of each element in the succession there is an event often minutes’ duration. The 156 elements in the succession begin on Tuesdays at19:30.

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The period in which the succession is projected begins on 1.1.1997 and ends on the31.12.1999.9

And:

The place in which this succession is established is the Zionskirche in Berlin Mitte.

Despite the official title 3 Years—156 Musical Events—1 Sculpture, or perhaps

because of its unwieldy nature, the project is often simply referred to by the name ofthe church in which it took place, and here as well I will refer to it simply as the

Zionskirche project. The Zionskirche is a parish church built in the late nineteenthcentury and situated a short tram ride from the city centre, near the border between

the districts of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Like many churches in east Berlin, in thelate 1990s it was in a state of some disrepair; at the start of the project many of the

windows were broken, making it subject to everything that the outside world couldthrow at it in terms of noise, weather and pigeon shit. Carlo Inderhees, who livesdirectly opposite, conceived of the project shortly after moving to Berlin and with the

express intent of creating something for the place where he lived. None of Inderhees’own music was performed there, however. Instead, the music—the events of ten

minutes’ duration mentioned in the concept—came from a total of thirty-twocomposers from all over the world, including many composers directly associated

with the Wandelweiser group (including Antoine Beuger, Jurg Frey, Radu Malfatti,Michael Pisaro, Craig Shepard, Kunsu Shim and Manfred Werder).10 Amongst the

others were many composers and musicians well-established on the Berlin new andexperimental music scene and some newcomers: they included Christian Kesten,

Juliane Klein, Klaus Lang, Makiko Nishikaze and Wolfgang von Schweinitz (thepieces from Schweinitz’s series bei nacht were played each Tuesday in November ineach of the three years, the only occasion in the project that such a programmatic

bundling of pieces by one composer took place). Many of the pieces performed in theZionskirche were written specifically for the project—all were first performances—

and some reacted directly to the performance space, particularly the second of the 3Solostucke fur Zion by the Berlin-based Swedish composer and musician Sven-Ake

Johansson, who integrated the windows of the church into the piece (he himselfperformed the piece on 4 May 1999). The pieces performed, and in many cases the

composers who wrote them, were not determined in advance of the project, and insome cases composers approached Inderhees directly with pieces to be performedthere when they heard about the weekly performances in the Zionskirche. Indeed,

Inderhees ended up with more pieces for the project than could actually beperformed in that context.11

Given the time frame specified—the project ran from the beginning of 1997 untilthe end of 1999—it is logical to ask what significance the approach of the year 2000

had for the concept. Although this was far from irrelevant, it is probably true to saythat for the most regular of the participants, the end of the century gradually gained a

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different significance: it marked the end of the project, rather than vice versa. This is

not to say that calendar time was irrelevant: on the contrary, the fixing of eventsaccording to the pre-ordained and artificial structures known as the clock and the

calendar, and the fluctuations naturally occurring in more organic processes (such asdaylight, temperature and human behaviour) when brought into line with these

structures, were not only central for the project but what links it most directly, andon a very grand scale, with the music of the Wandelweiser group more generally. Thetemporal frame can be described in simplified form as representing ten minutes of

sound—the performances—followed by 10,070 minutes in which no planned soundoccurred, this succession then being repeated 155 times.12 This exactitude of

durational structure, and the division into events and non-events at precise periodicintervals, is reminiscent not only of the structure of the music of fur sich but of many

other compositions by composers associated with the Wandelweiser group at thattime, music in which, similarly, sound events are framed by rests or periods of silence

which may be relatively long and are organized in line with a fixed time structurewhich applies to the whole piece or parts thereof and is often periodic in nature.Further characteristics include the fact that changes between events, if notated at all,

occur on a very limited number of parameters, and that the music is generally veryquiet, or one could say: unassuming.

What is special about this aesthetic—and this approach to time and place—mightbecome more apparent if we compare two pieces performed during the project by

two composers closely linked to it, but whose music, despite similarities on someparameters, differs subtly but decisively on others. Both pieces are for solo flute, and

both are taken from series of pieces, several pieces from each series having beenperformed in the Zionskirche during the three years.

The fourth section of within (1) (1996) by Michael Pisaro was the first piece to beperformed in the Zionskirche, on 7 January 1997. The other sections in the piece—there are six in total—were also performed there.13 This is in line with the

instructions in the score, which notes that each section lasts ten minutes and that aperformance can consist of any number of sections in any order. The score also notes

that the individual sections can be separated by breaks or other pieces, and that ‘It isalso possible to perform individual sections of the work on different days, as on

different concerts in the same series’, which is what happened in this case. within (1)for flute is one in a series of pieces for several instruments: cello, guitar, accordion,

trombone and clarinet. Several pieces from these other series were also performedduring the Zionskirche project. Figure 1 shows the relevant page from the score and afurther page, section 1, for comparison.

Each notated pitch in the score represents what Pisaro terms ‘a very relaxed, hardlyperceptible sound on the flute’; this sound ‘is a part of the space—imperceptible, but

present’, and ‘The flutist does not strive to produce the sound, it is allowed to happen’.The number of sounds varies from section to section: definitive, however, is the

regularity of their appearance within each section (every fifteen seconds: each sectionends with a thirty-second rest) as well as the fact that events within each section simply

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recur. This regularity of structure is even more pronounced in many works by Antoine

Beuger and Manfred Werder (and Inderhees himself), which set up an exactly recurring,serial-repetitive structure which does not vary throughout the piece.

Compare this, then, to the type of form presented in Dramatische Studie Nr. 6(1999) by Stefan Streich, a variant of which was performed by Normisa Pereira da

Silva on July 20, 1999 (see Figure 2). Streich was one of the most regular visitors tothe Zionskirche, had several pieces performed there, and for a time his music was alsopublished by Wandelweiser-Verlag. His series of Dramatische Studien (Dramatic

Studies) differs however in subtle but significant ways from the series composed byother, more long-standing Wandelweiser composers. What actually happens in

Streich’s piece can be surmised more easily using the graphic representation inFigure 3, which in turn presents two ways of looking at the piece. The second divides

the piece into segments each lasting thirty seconds, while the first—which incidentallymore closely follows the layout of the score—divides it into segments of one minute

each. This arrangement makes it clearer that Streich’s piece can perhaps best beunderstood as presenting two related, interlocking processes, each stage of each processlasting a total of thirty seconds, and taking the form of a progression from complete or

almost complete equilibrium between sound and silence to a situation where silenceoutweighs sound by a ratio of 2:13 or 1:13, respectively. The second representation is

closer to the impression on hearing the piece, since—due to the individual lengths ofboth sounds and silence, and the lack of consisting supporting factors on other

parameters—it may not be at all obvious that we are dealing with two processesrunning, as it were, in parallel. The other three variants of the score differ in their pitch

material, but the temporal processes are the same.The difference to the approach in Pisaro’s piece may not be immediately obvious,

not least since in within (1) as well there are varying lengths of silence in each section.Nevertheless, even the title of Streich’s piece—Dramatische Studie—indicates thisformal difference: for all that the title is to be taken with a pinch of salt, and for all that

Streich’s piece displays much in common with other characteristics of Pisaro’s (quietdynamic, unusual timbre, simple material), the form presented in Dramatische Studie

Nr. 1 is very much an individual rather than a dividual form,14 and even a dramaticform, even if the drama which unfolds is extremely understated and is as much about

the idea of dramatic form as it is such a form itself. By contrast, the score of within (1)states that ‘[n]o effort should be made to vary the sound. No effort should be made to

keep it the same. The same process simply enacts itself every fifteen seconds.’In many ways, this is exactly what happened over the three years of the project in

the Zionskirche, as well. There too, we have a process that simply enacts itself, even if

the pieces presented differed sometimes radically one from the other in content.Indeed, the 156 musical events in the Zionskirche present not only a microcosm of

experimental music as made and experienced in Berlin in the late 1990s, but also anopportunity to explore in detail what connected and connects the Wandelweiser

Figure 1 Michael Pisaro, within (1), sections 4 and 1."

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composers to one another, what differentiates their aesthetic from other related

developments and what is particular about each individual approach, including to thetask of composing ten minutes of music for performance in the Zionskirche. For the

present purposes, though, I will return to the focus on the relationship between thelinked categories of series and place as demonstrated in this and similar undertakings.

Series and Place

When we observe the same thing again and again, there is no need to develop it: itdevelops itself. Or, as the artist Andy Goldsworthy once commented: ‘Change is best

Figure 2 Stefan Streich, Dramatische Studie Nr. 6, Variant 1. This is the version of thescore available at the time of the project. The published version varies slightly in layout,but not content. The direction at the start of the score is for the flautist to play ‘verystraight WHISTLE TONES’ throughout.

"

Figure 3 Stefan Streich, Dramatische Studie Nr. 6, Variant 1: two graphic representations.Coloured boxes represent sound and blank boxes rests.

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understood by staying in the same place’.15 The same can be said of actions: do

something repeatedly, and it becomes differentiated. Carry out a routine for longenough, and it becomes something else.

Although there is a close connection between the Zionskirche as performance spaceand the music performed there, and although the Zionskirche formed the centre, the

hub, of the project, there are important distinctions to be made between the role ofplace in the Zionskirche project and the manner in which locations function in otherexamples of site-specific music. Indeed, it may be better to describe the Zionskirche

project as place-specific rather than site-specific. For place has a quality which neednot be directly or intentionally affected by events which take place within it: the

relationship between the two is discreet rather than direct.The real difference is that the dynamic relationship between a place and the music

which takes place there is not so much a function of space as of time. Though mostexamples of site-specific music are also time-specific, in that they tend to be accessible

for a limited period of time, this is in the majority of cases a by-product of theconcept rather than its driving force.16 Though events within them may be temporarywhen viewed over the longer term, what makes a place a place are its non-temporary

qualities, particularly that we return to it time and again. Places become placesthrough a serial process: places are not one-off things, but arise from repetition.

Place can, in this way, be seen as a natural consequence both of the use of seriesand of the reduced elements with which Wandelweiser composers work. In the

former sense, the importance of place is connected to the role of time and repetitionin this music. Performance series in the same place at set times reflect, on a macro-

structural level, a typical ordering principle of Wandelweiser music, one which oftendirectly reflects the compositional practices of the composers themselves (there are

several examples of pieces composed according to a self-imposed regime of creating acertain amount of material each day).17 As well, the tendency towards sounds whichare on the border of audibility, and to extensive periods in which no sound is

produced, create a situation in which the place of performance, as it were, has achance to shine through.

This is not to suggest that the principles of series and place are always, orincontrovertibly, a factor in Wandelweiser music. The music of Jurg Frey, and his

reflections on the impact of the Zionskirche project on his work, is however aninteresting case in point. If we compare Frey’s pieces with those of many other

Wandelweiser composers performed in the course of the Zionskirche project, wenotice that their form, while sometimes containing serial elements, is much morerounded than that of many of the others. On the macro-structural level, this is

reflected in the fact that Frey for a long time tended to produce individualcompositions rather than series of compositions. In response to a questionnaire given

by Inderhees to several participants, Frey noted that he had previously resistedworking in series, since he felt this manner of working tended too strongly towards

mechanization. During the course of the Zionskirche project, and not least because ofthe ‘long and continuous working conditions’ it provided, he moved away from this

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position and began to write series of pieces as well: ‘Today, I see work in series as a

possibility to express content and experiences that would not be possible in the usualcontext of a concert’ (Frey, 1999). Frey commented further:

There are artistic ideas of which one presumes that they must always remain ideas,because they are too far removed from the habitual, too difficult to realize orbecause one has neither the energy nor the means to apply them. For this reason,they remain diffuse and vague, and are never realized. The Zionskirche projectshows what can happen when one works on an idea for so long that it loses itsvagueness, its diffuseness, and becomes reality. I have experienced how a projectcan unfold its potential in the course of time. It is a period which one can hardlyimagine, because of its long duration. But you can compose this period. I saw theZionskirche project as a composition on the grand scale, which has different partsand which is based on a concept which in itself has the possibility of lasting threeyears. (Frey, 1999; my translation)

Here, Frey is expressing in concrete terms a phenomenon also observed by the arthistorian Hannelore Paflik-Hubner (1997) in the context of an extensive study of theuse of time in the contemporary visual arts. As she points out, much of the confusion

and controversy which has surrounded time in philosophical discourse stems fromthe linguistic boundaries which necessarily infringe on any discourse; it is in part a

problem with words, as Henri Bergson had also noted a century earlier. Artists,however, have the benefit of being able to work concretely with manifestations of

time, and thus to come closer to the nature and significance of time for humanexperience than most verbal dialogue can. And as Thomas Reiner (2000) has noted,

drawing on Wittgenstein but developing the idea specifically in relationship to music,time is in any case only manifest in the processes and in the signs which demonstrate

its passing.18

Two series composed by Antoine Beuger and dedicated to Inderhees, called placeand sound respectively, may help us explore a further facet of these distinctions and

to reiterate another important difference between site-specific and place-specificmusic. The series place was composed in 1996–7, sound in 1997. Each series consists

of a total of seventeen pieces for different solo instruments (including one for asinger and one for a speaker), each lasting ten minutes. Ten pieces from place and

six from sound received their first performances in the Zionskirche. Common toboth series is that there is one sound event every eight seconds (generally, the event

lasts three seconds and is followed by eight seconds of silence). Common to bothare also the fifty-five events in total notated in each piece in each series. Thedifference between sound and place lies in the temporal disposition of events within

the ten minutes of each piece. In sound, the performer decides (using chanceprocedures if possible) how many of the fifty-five events are to be played: the

minimum number allowed is twenty. The piece begins with the first event, and theremainder of the piece after the last event played is conducted in silence. In place,

the performer also has to decide how many events are to be played, but also whenthe section with the events is to begin. In contrast to sound, nine different

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possibilities (based on the Fibonacci series) are given for the number of events that

can be played: either one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four orfifty-five. Another and more important difference is that unlike sound, each piece in

place does not automatically begin with the first sounding event. Instead, theperformer also has to determine when the first event is to begin, and with which

section of the score. The only restriction is that Beuger states the latest possibletime for the first event depending on how many events in total are to be played(for example, if only one event is to be played, the latest point is 803200; if thirteen

events are played, the latest point is 605600). In both sound and place, events are thenplayed in the sequence they are given in the score; in the case of place, if the

number of events to be played is greater than the events remaining in the sectionchosen, the performer simply proceeds from the beginning of the score after the

last notated event is played.The difference, then, between sound and place (and it is tempting indeed to remove

the italicization from the terms in question) lies in the different possibilities forarticulating the ten minutes of the piece. Though the total number of scored events isthe same in each case, most performances of place will consist of fewer events than

most performances of sound. Moreover, in place the beginning of the piece inperformance does not necessarily begin with the first event played. This of course

raises the question—for the audience—of when the piece actually begins.In many ways, sound and place are illustrative of very many elements that are

definitive for Wandelweiser music in this period, elements focused and documentedin the structure of the Zionskirche project as a whole. The fact that the reservoir of

sounding material is the same in each series emphasizes the centrality, to theconcept, of the time frame as such, and in particular, how this is articulated

through sound and non-sound. It is also perhaps worth stressing at this point whatin practical terms actually happened during the Zionskirche project: Every Tuesdayevening, people gathered to hear a single, ten-minute-long piece be performed.

Starting point and finishing point of each of these 156 events were determined inadvance, and although as a visitor to the project it never ceased to amaze me how

often people left before even the ten minutes had elapsed, nevertheless a small butincreasing number of visitors chose to participate regularly in this way. Many

would then proceed to a cafe or bar, arguably as important an aspect of theproceedings as any other (and just about the only element not documented by

Inderhees). This particular aspect of the project is as definitive as any other as amarker of the distinction between place and site in this context. For as not only the

Figure 4 Christoph Nicolaus, sculpture for the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalischeEreignisse—1 Skulptur. Made of a total of ninety-six bore stones, it lay flat on the groundof the organ loft in the Zionskirche where the performances took place. Each week, theposition of two of the larger or two of the smaller stones was exchanged. The threephotographs show the sculpture in the weeks of 8, 15 and 25 April 1997.

"

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pieces by Beuger discussed above indicate, a musical performance is not simply the

playing of particular musical sounds. It is a particular form of social activity thatmay, as in this case, take the form of no obvious activity at all. This is clearest of all

in those moments where those present participate in that most rare of humanactivities: coming together and being still. This stillness, however, is coupled with

awareness and attentiveness; something enters the room, namely, the piece.Performance means presence, and presence means place.

In the final, official version of the project documentation, published in Spring of

the year 2000, the statement of the project’s concept is quite different from the earlierversion quoted previously:

Ein Zeitraum wirddurch aquidistante Modifikationen.

Ein Ort wirddurch aquidistante Modifikationen.

There are two main differences here: first, ‘regular changes’ have been been replaced

by the even more quantified ‘equidistant modifications’; more significantly, the verbwerden is no longer passive (something which is done, created), but intransitive

(something which is, becomes, and in this case, has become). The finaldocumentation also contains lists of the dates, composers, number of visitors, time

of sunset, temperature in the church; the name of the pieces, the performers and theirinstruments; and a note of the changes made to the sculpture, for each Tuesday of the

project. It also contains a photograph of the sculpture. The sculpture was a constantcompanion over the three years of the project. Its exact position on the floor of the

empty organ loft where the performances took place changed slightly over the timeperiod, for external reasons. Every week, the sculpture itself was subject to equidistantmodifications, the two stones which changed places being communicated to

Inderhees each week by postcard. What exactly had changed was however practicallyimpossible to discern even for the initiated (and the reader may choose to try, too, to

figure out the difference between the three versions of the sculpture presented in thephotographs in Figure 4).

In a way, the sculpture thus reflects one of the most important aspects of theZionskirche project in its micro-structure and in its macro-structure: that change had

occurred, most acknowledged; what the change was exactly, hardly anyone could say;when and how this change had occurred, also remained unclear. Perhaps the nearestwe can come to describing, in language, what actually happened, comes in the closing

lines of one of two poems by Emily Dickinson referred to by Beuger in the scoreintroduction to the series place:

At half past Seven, ElementNor implement, be seen—And Place was where the Presence wasCircumference between.

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Notes

[1] See, for example, Coplans (1968, pp. 34–35): ‘Serial imagery is a type of repeated form orstructure shared equally by each work in a group of related works made by one artist[. . .] Neither the number of works nor the similarity of theme in a given structuredetermines whether a painting or sculpture is serial. Rather, seriality is identified by aparticular relationship, rigorously consistent, of structure and syntax: serial structures areproduced by a single indivisible process that links the internal structure of a work to thatof other works within a differentiated whole’. According to Mel Bochner (1967, pp. 28–33), ‘serial’ describes a form in which the order of the elements is more important thanhow they are executed; he also suggests that ‘repetition of a standard unit’ is typical. Hisexamples include the early animal photography of Edmund Muybridge and the works ofAndy Warhol. For a discussion of the differences but also points of contact betweenserielle Musik and serial art in the 1950s and 1950s, see chapter 6 of Grant (2001, pp.164–189).

[2] I realize that using the term ‘music’ to describe many manifestations of this phenomenon isopen to discussion. I continue to prefer this as an umbrella term to describe things that are,nevertheless, closely related historically and culturally. It hopefully goes without saying thatmy own definition of music is wide. It is also my firm belief that theoretical andphilosophical approaches to music have to adapt to different forms of musical practice indifferent eras and cultures and not vice versa.

[3] Or at least, they are composed for a particular type of music and what it (re-)presents.[4] In my own research, I have used the German edition of this work: Auge, M. (2011). Nicht-

Orte (M. Bischoff, Trans.). Munich: Beck.[5] For more information on complice and the edition, see http://www.e-complice.de. Retrieved

17 August 2011.[6] For more information and a project archive, see http://incidentalmusicprojects-archives.

blogspot.com/. Retrieved 26 August 2011.[7] For example, in a paper presented in the year 2001 at the Second Biennial Conference on

Music in the Twentieth Century which is one of the sources for this article.[8] Note on the translation: the German verb ‘werden’, third person present tense ‘wird’, does

not mean ‘is’ but ‘becomes’ or ‘is made to be so’. This is important when we compare thisversion of the concept text—from the version of the documentation issued in September1999—to the final version, discussed towards the end of this article.

[9] The German text reads as follows:

In einem Zeitraum von drei Jahren wird eine Folge etabliert.Die Folgenglieder dauern jeweils 168 Stunden und schließen unmittelbaraneinander an.Am Beginn eines jeden Folgengliedes steht ein Ereignis von zehn MinutenDauer.Die 156 Folgenglieder beginnen dienstags um 19:30 Uhr.Der Zeitraum, in den die Folge projiziert wird, beginnt am 1.1.1997 und endetam 31.12.1999.[. . .]Der Ort, an dem diese Folge etabliert wird, ist die Zionskirche in Berlin Mitte.

This is the text as it appeared in the final documentation of the project and differs insome details from earlier versions produced during the project itself.

[10] Kunsu Shim was one of the original Wandelweiser but now publishes his music elsewhere.For more information on the origins of the Wandelweiser group, see Pisaro (2009).

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[11] Most of the material from the project, including the pieces originally performed there andother pieces that were not, is now in my possession.

[12] The only exception to this is the week beginning 7 July 1998, when due to unforeseencircumstances no piece was performed. The church was however opened as usual, changesmade to the sculpture as in every other week and thirteen people attended. In the finalversion of the documentation, references to this non-performance are given in italics.

[13] Namely within (1) 2 on 6 May 1997, within (1) 3 on 3 June 1997, within (1) 6 on 16December 1998, within (1) 1 on 28 July 1998 and within (1) 5 on 16 February 1999; all wereperformed by Normisa Pereira da Silva.

[14] In the sense of Paul Klee’s distinction between dividual and individual form: the latterindicates a form in which each constituent element is important for the whole, whereas inthe case of dividual form the absence of one element does not destroy the form of the whole.See also the discussion of Antoine Beuger’s series sound and place, at the end of this article.

[15] Comment made during a discussion following a screening of the film Rivers and Tides aboutGoldsworthy’s work at the Berlin Film Festival, February 2002.

[16] For a discussion of this aspect of site-specific art, see Powers (2009).[17] For example, pieces by Antoine Beuger, Craig Shepard and Manfred Werder have arisen in

this way, the composer setting themselves the task of composing a set amount of material (atune, a piece and a page of a piece) each day.

[18] My thanks to Jochem Valkenburg for drawing my attention to this text.

References

Auge, M. (1996). Non-Lieux. Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite. Paris: Editions duSeuil.

Bochner, M. (1967). The Serial Attitude. Artforum, 6, 28–33.Castells, M. (1996). The information age: Economy, society, and culture, Vol. 1: The rise of the network

society. First edition. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Coplans, J. (1968). Serial imagery. Artforum, 8, 34–43.Frey, J. (1999). Response to questionnaire on the project 3 Jahre—156 musikalische Ereignisse—1

Skulptur formulated by Carlo Inderhees. Unpublished manuscript.Grant, M. J. (2001). Serial music, serial aesthetics: compositional theory in post-war Europe.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Paflik-Hubner, H. (1997). Kunst und Zeit: Zeitmodelle in der Gegenwartskunst. Munich: scaneg.Pisaro, M. (2009). Wandelweiser. Erstwords. Retrieved 28 August 2011, from http://erstwords.

blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html and http://www.wandelweiser.de.Powers, J. S. (2009). Temporary art and public place: Comparing Berlin with Los Angeles. Frankfurt:

Peter Lang.Reiners, T. (2000). Semiotics of musical time. New York: Peter Lang.

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