Suggestion of least resistance (2018)
Music for the animated film by Michelle & Uri Kranot
for large ensemble (amplified), sampler and video
Duration: 6 min.
Composition commissioned by Klangforum Wien, financed by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
WP: 08.02.2019, Stuttgart, Theaterhaus/T1 Eclat Festival, as part of the 'Happiness Machine' programmeKlangforum Wien
Performance material available from the composer
Suggestion of least resistance (2018)
Animationsfilm: Michelle and Uri Kranot zum Wiener Justitzpalastbrand 1927
Instrumentation:
fl (+picc).ob(+cor anglais).ob (+corA). cl (+bcl).asax(+barsax).bn (+dbn)-hn.tpt.trbn-perc-smpl.pft.akk.-2vln.vla.vc.db
Work commentary
"Suggestion of least Resistance" is an experimental collaborative work by the artists Michelle & Uri Kranot and the composer Iris ter Schiphorst.
The project is based on archive material depicting the July Uprising of 1927 (the Vienna Palace of Justice fire): Socialist workers from the suburbs of Vienna gather in front of the Palace of Justice to express their anger at the corrupt justice system. 89 people are killed by armed policemen on horseback. More than 600 people are seriously injured. The angry crowd storms the Palace of Justice: files are set on fire and flames soon blaze from the windows of the palace. The uprising on 15 July will prove to be a fateful day: the prelude to what will ultimately lead to civil war.
The animated film resembles a rhythmic, poetic wave that compares us, our lives and our humanity to burning papers in the wind. Images of papers flying through the broken windows of the burning palace are juxtaposed with images of crowds gathering and dispersing. The music charges these powerful images with vibrancy and colour. We are driven by the idea of documentation and "truth", experimenting with artistic form and its uncanny distortion through the repetitive, stylised abstractions of the events unfolding.
The project was initiated by Klangforum Wien as part of the "Economy for the Common Good", is conceived as a live audiovisual performance and will be presented as a film projection, video installation and short film.
More details at: https: //tindrum.dk/projects/suggestion-of-least-resistance/
Trailor:https://vimeo.com/300050497
Reviews
Wiener Zeitung, 06.03.2019, Lena Drazic
"...Iris ter Schiphorst's moving ensemble music lends the archive material from the Palace of Justice fire in Michelle Kranot's 'Suggestion of Least resistance' an energetic urgency..."
Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 11/02/2019, Susanne Benda
Wonderfully playful film-music collaborations from the field of tension between individual beings and community can be marvelled at here... Even if, because the human senses work this way, the visual stimuli override the acoustic ones, even if the music is usually only perceived as a colour to the image, you can hear the strength of the compositions, among which the one by Iris der Schiphorst is probably the freest, perhaps also the most radical way of dealing with the animated film images (here: by Michelle Kranot).