leeways #3: Improvisation und Verwaltung oder »Nur das Unnütze ist von Dauer« (Ein elektro-akustischer Adorno-Essay)
Electroacoustic Performance + Talk in German
Guest: Joachim Zoepf
Moderation: Mathias Maschat
Improvisation and administration – intuitively these sound like two almost incompatible concepts. And indeed, there are some contradictory aspects that justify improvisation and administration as opposing concepts. However, it is also worth exploring those aspects that suggest a reciprocal relationship or a more concrete connection between improvisation and administration. The occasion for reflecting on the relationship between improvisation and administration is composer, improvising saxophonist and bass clarinettist Joachim Zoepf’s examination of Theodor W. Adorno’s 1959 lecture Culture and Administration. The result of this examination, which began in 2019, is the electro-acoustic “Adorno essay” Nur das Unnütze ist von Dauer (“Only the useless lasts”). In the third edition of Denkraum Improvisation’s leeways series, the piece will be performed, followed by a discussion between Joachim Zoepf and Mathias Maschat about what the work and the background and dimensions of the concepts of improvisation and administration.
The point of departure is the lecture Culture and Administration, from which a total of 16 quotations have been embedded in Zoepf’s composition in an edited form. It was not only Adorno’s extremely witty and differentiated way of looking at things, but also his sophisticated language and subtle irony that prompted him to create a work with some passages from the text spoken by Adorno himself. For Zoepf, the lecture has lost none of its relevance 65 years later, and the selected excerpts offer many suggestions for thinking about the relationship between culture, administration and the cultural industry. The bridge built from the practice of free improvisation is the question of which aspects can be relevant to cultures of improvisation according to Adorno’s theses.
In addition to the textual material, the electro-acoustic composition is based on the use of a modular Doepfer synthesiser. It also incorporates collage-like excerpts from 1960s recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Paul Kuhn and the Bristol Bar Sextet. The basic form of the composition is a series of eight layers of triangular waves that slowly change like a kaleidoscope. As the piece progresses, other waveforms, percussive sounds and noises are added, as well as an arrangement of the lyrics using granular, re-synthesis and multi-synthesis techniques. The interplay between the dialectics of composition and pre-structured material on the one and improvisation and controlled chance on the other side forms the basis for the concrete shaping of the work.
http://www.newimprovisedmusic.com/
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeepDjAYvs
© Kerstin Frymark
