“Bones” by Peter Thiedeke
Title:
- Bones
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Artist Statement:
We re-begin with two ideas: breath as an elemental human life-function (which is also how sound is produced on the trombone) and the materiality of the instrument itself. Importantly, we are not considering the instrument in the abstract, but rather a particular instrument, a 1956 New York Bach Stradivarius model 8, serial number 5620. This instrument displays the physical evidence of decades of travel around the world, with dents, scratches, worn bits, and patches of rust. The photography and video in this project foreground these markings and reimagine this physical history as a catalyst for sonic and visual experimentation using a range of digital tools. In imagining how a physical object becomes an audiovisual world, the overall goal is to transform ordinary experience into an extraordinary one. We begin by amplifying human presence via an emphasis on breath and breathing (sound and rhythm), then deploy a range of sonic and moving image technologies to reimagine the history of a specific instrument and the culturally received memories and expectations of that instrument. The focus is on bending perception; reaching (forward and back) into our individual consciousnesses to elicit the idiosyncratic and experimental resonances that we all carry with us.
