Music with Roots in the Aether: Pauline Oliveros
at MoMA 11-27-2008
Music with Roots in the Aether, Part 6: Pauline Oliveros (1975) was presented as part of the Looking At Music film series currently at the Museum of Modern Art.
This film was a triple threat with an interesting interview of influential composer Pauline Oliveros, a surreal setting that included costumed actors engaged in absurd performance in the background, and a final half hour full of pulsing drone as Oliveros gave an intimate concert.
Like most of the composers interviewed for this series, Oliveros first learned the language of traditional composition through her studies, and only earned her notoriety after developing her own voice. She described how her rebirth began with deep listening—a microphone in the windowsill inspired a promise to herself to always be aware of the sound environment around her.
I identified with her complaints of performance anxiety. Her attempts to free herself from that led to her current compositional process, which is an extreme form of detachment that she describes as “deformation.” It’s a state of improvised performance that she tries to reach by ignoring her own impulses, which she calls “intentions.” If she feels a conscious urge to create a sound, she ignores it, and instead waits for a hand of creation that seems to come not of her own will.
Also identified with her intensely introspective thinking. In her own words, she spends a great deal of time analyzing her own creative process with a scientific rigor, including the emotional setup and extraneous influences of setting and circumstance that combine to direct the result. She is her own analyst and observer and she reports on her thoughts and motivations with an insight and clarity that is telling of a very intelligent lady.
She also frees herself from painful scrutiny by drawing in “materials other than sound” into the “performance event” in order to disorient the audience by upsetting their expectations. I can see how that would create a situation where the audience is forced to respond to the piece on its own grounds, severed from any conventional wisdom about what makes music good or bad. Expectation taints perception. It is a prejudice that undermines the honesty of experience.
The back and forth between the interviewer, Robert Ashley, himself a noteworthy figure in highly academic contemporary music, was that of and informal chat among peers. I really enjoyed their sincere appreciation of each others work and comments on such, and the insider perspective enriching the whole discussion.
Anyone who enjoys thinking about what music is, how music is made, and how it can be performed would enjoy this documentary series. Also, this one in particular would be a mondo headfuck while on mushrooms.
time comes undone 