Assange - Fragmente einer Unzeit (Assange - Fragments of an untimely time) (2019)
for female voice, large ensemble and sampler (amplified)
Duration: 20 min.
Composition commissioned by Ensemble modern, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the funding programme Excellent Orchestral Landscape Germany
WP: 07.11.2019, Muziekgebouw aan't IJ, AmsterdamSarah Maria Sun, voice / Ensemble Modern, cond. Enno Poppe
exact cast: 1.1.1.1-1.1.1.0-perc(2)-2pft-strings (1.1.1.2.1)
Performance material available from Boosey & Hawkes
Assange: Fragments of an Untimely Time is about the threat to our freedom as individuals. It is about the attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press and, on a deeper level, about the danger that threatens us all when the law suddenly no longer applies. The case of Julian Assange is the most vivid illustration of what happens when someone proclaims "unpleasant" truths.
"First Assange and then...?"
Article about the Assange case by Iris ter Schiphorst in 'Journal der Künste 11', from 5 November 2019, pp. 21-23
https://issuu.com/journalderkuenste/docs/jdk_11_de_issuu...
(excerpt): Is information a common good that belongs to everyone in a democracy? Who owns data? When does "leaking" information jeopardise "national security", when does it prevent wars? Who is spying for whom and why?
We know, at the latest since the major leaks by whistleblowers such as Chelsea M. (then Bradley) Manning or Edward Snowden and publications on platforms such as WikiLeaks, how Western states wage wars (in our name), how tax havens function and what sums are lost to the state in the process. We have received information about Guantánamo and about secret drafts of controversial trade agreements. We have learnt how secret services and large companies monitor us in conjunction with social media, misuse our data and how private companies (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) not only do business with it, but also manipulate elections (Trump, Brexit).
But we hardly care about these facts. A strange lethargy seems to be taking hold. Yet we are in the midst of an information war in which data and information are becoming decisive political weapons, in which fake news and manipulation dominate political agendas, in which whistleblowers are hunted down like criminals, journalists and publicists are intimidated, persecuted, threatened, imprisoned or even murdered. And not just in Arab countries, China or Russia, but also in democratic countries in the western world.
In this war, Julian Assange is becoming an example that will show how the treatment of press freedom, journalism, whistleblowers and publicists is developing worldwide. ...
Iris ter Schiphorst
Programme text
Assange: Fragments of an Untimely Time' is about the attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press and the danger that threatens us all when the law suddenly no longer applies.
On a deeper level, this work is fundamentally about the threat to our freedom as individuals. In addition to the question of what we get to see and hear (through the media), what we are 'presented' with, it is also about what we want to see and hear in the first place. What we can bear and endure, what we allow...
Formally, 'Assange-Fragmente einer Unzeit' (Assange Fragments of an Untimely Period) draws on the form of a melodrama to a certain extent and requires vocalist Sarah-Maria Sun to shape the 'inner process' of the character of an 'existentially threatened individual'. As her part is almost entirely without text, she can only express this process through an extremely differentiated vocal articulation of the notated noise and vocal passages as well as a special 'attitude of attention' of listening, of listening (to the music that surrounds her).
Text can be heard above all from the sampler, played live by pianist Hermann Kreztschmar, who transmits different opinions/voices on the Assange case taken from the media into the room exactly according to the score. These many 'voices' form a (media) choir against which the main character can hardly protect himself.
The role of the (ensemble) music is to interfere with the symbolisations that appear in the different opinions of these many 'voices' and to initiate reinterpretations and irritations. In doing so, she also draws on musical 'pathos formulas' (I) and asks whether, under certain conditions, the much-maligned affect also has an inherent critical potential?
Where does kitsch begin, where does pathos begin? The repression?
Perhaps it is precisely in the pathetic that something can be liberated and rescued, namely that which has always fascinated and captivated us with its intensity, but which is repeatedly withdrawn from us by the 'oversized' symbolic templates (clichés) into which our feelings are pressed in various social processes. What is encapsulated therein should be broken open in order to make it ambivalent again and allow it to be experienced anew - so that our own individual feelings are given a chance and space in relation to the main figure 'condemned' by society and what fascinates and repels us about her. And thus the alien, the repressed in ourselves.
Iris ter Schiphorst
According to Aby Warburg, 'I pathos formulas' are part of a universal cultural history, "engrams of passionate experience as memory-preserved heritage". In this context, he speaks of a "supra-historical treasure trove of human suffering", an "imprint of affects". According to Warburg, both religion and art refer permanently to this vital imprint of affects and develop their forms in dialogue with it.
see also interview with Thea Derks/Iris ter Schiphorst in Contemporary Classical, 05.11.2019:
Wikileaks has never been caught on a single error'
Reviews
for the German premiere in Frankfurt a. M., 11.04.2021, Wiesbadener Kurier, Sylvia Adler, 14.04.2021
Debut of "Assange - Fragmente einer Unzeit" via live stream
FRANKFURT A strangled cry behind her hand, a gasp, a choke. Soprano Sarah Maria Sun presses her hand in front of her mouth. The death throes raging in her throat remain almost silent and implode inwards. With her 2019 work "Assange - Fragmente eine Unzeit" for female voice, ensemble and sampler, composer Iris ter Schiphorst has created a powerful plea against the threat to individual liberties. On Sunday, the piece - performed by Ensemble Modern under the direction of Corinna Niemeyer - received its German premiere in Frankfurt via live stream.
The composer was inspired to write the work by the Julian Assange case. The founder of the Wikileaks whistleblowing platform has been in a British prison for two years. Previously, he had taken refuge in the London embassy of Ecuador for seven years as a politically persecuted person. He fears extradition to the USA, where he faces life imprisonment, if not the death penalty, for allegedly betraying secrets. In 2010, Wikileaks revealed alleged war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan by publishing internal documents from the US armed forces. The performance of Schiporst's work, which lasts just under 30 minutes, was the centrepiece of a matinee performance hosted by Ensemble Modern together with the initiative "The Utopian Space in Global Frankfurt" in Frankfurt's Dachsaal on Sunday....
Formally, her strictly dualistic work reflects a dramatic imbalance of power. Soprano Sarah Maria Sun's voice, intoned with a furious vocal spectrum, symbolised the endangered individual, who was confronted by the Ensemble Modern with its concentrated sound power as an overpowering collective. In mercilessly swelling crescendos, the orchestra put the vocal part to the test, forcing it to its knees with unyielding rhythms and infernal increases in tempo - to the point of complete destruction.
...
Interspersed in the music like glaring, sharp-edged splinters were clips from media reports and politicians' statements from Theresa May to Hillary Clinton. The composer had picked them out of a flood of original sound bites to shed light on the public controversy. An aggressive cacophony of overlapping voices finally silenced the individual. In the maelstrom of public opinion rushing through the orchestra, he suffered a complete loss of speech. The silencing of a critical voice could hardly be more drastic and disturbing.