k
eco
Written by You Nakai Additional narrative inputs by Yelena Gluzman, Matvei Yankelevich and Bob Bellerue Premiered at Out of Print: An Evening with Ugly Duckling Presse, The Kitchen, New York, 9 May 2011
Gk. oikos "house, dwelling place, habitation" (cognate with L. vicus "district," vicinus "near") Esperanto. eco "property, quality"
“So I went to The Kitchen on Friday and I put the transducers and it works. Well, it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined...” “Uh-huh, what did it sound like?” “Basically, I was imagining more like... to convert one seat into a speaker, but it turns out that although I can do that, in order to make the whole chair vibrate, I need to raise the volume of whatever sound that is coming out of the transducer. And the irony is that if I do that, the sound just gets dispersed at the same time, because the volume is too big... you can hear it in other parts. And so I was trying with different volumes and I put four transducers around, in different parts of audience seats, and I think that generally speaking, if it’s really quiet, although the initial image that I had of converting one specific chair into a speaker is not necessarily the effect that it produces, in that it’s very hard to determine where the sound is coming from, but if it’s really really quiet, and I control how many and from which speakers, it creates this funny effect that certain group of people are listening to the music while others are not.”
“I’m still sticking to the idea of putting those transducers beneath the chairs, and one of the things I solved, was that in terms of the number of transducers, there is not so many that I can prepare because all of them would require a set of transmitters and receivers and they’re kind of expensive. So the maximum that I’m thinking is like 7. But there’s 155 seats.” “Oh... shit” “So I’ve been thinking how to deal with that. And so I needed some way to control where the audiences would sit, so that they would sit within the range of transducers... whatever sound that is coming out of a transducer. And I thought I would just use a lot of umm... you know those papers, when you go to the theater and it says ‘reserved’? So I’m just going to put them like everywhere.”
“Another thing that I found out, and I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but Matvei told me that one performance should be between 15 and 20 minutes, so I was thinking like 18 minutes, more or less.” “I see a green light!” “...And I noticed that the number of chairs in one row is 18. And if I’m going to pursue that initial idea of problematizing the whole issue of seeing and being seen that the structure of the risers takes for granted, and hence that idea of projecting to the audiences, and so on and so forth, and if I really sit in front of the audience, alone, with nothing... I think it’s better with nothing... I could somehow use the seatings itself as a score for the 18 minutes.”
“And I have a bluetooth transmitter and a receiver, so I can send sounds wirelessly to those chair speakers.”
“I’m just going to make a track which feeds into those transducers. And so sometimes only one transducer would be active, in which case only the people around the speaker can hear the music. And then there would be contrast, you know, from one to seven speakers.”
“I’m thinking of using a lot of language, like I told you...” “Uh-huh” “And I want to create these different degrees of reality. So like one thing is coming out from the transducers, but I want another level which operates through direct conversation, so like, you’re spoke from somebody next to you... And maybe that could somehow function with the reserved seatings. I mean, you know, the reserved seats would surround the area of the audiences...”
“Because the seating is very directional... it’s angled, so in a way you can show something to only the people sitting in the upper row chairs. So if you had a balloon or something that would slowly descend, only these people would see it and everybody else wouldn’t notice, and then the next row, and then the next... and so on. So I can create delays in terms of perception of what is being displayed.”
“It also depends a lot on where you are, because if the transducer is attached to your seat, then that’s a very different experience from, you know, if you’re 3 seats away.”
“So I’m just wondering maybe this would be a piece that’s better to do at the end?” “Umm... the only problem is that I have already set the transducers before the audiences come in, which means the I have to leave the transmitters/receivers on. And I think because they run on charged batteries, they would last only for maybe an hour?” “Ah...” “So that’s why I want to go either first or second...” “Right... so maybe, I’d say let’s just do it first.”
“I mean the only parameter I can use, is basically the volume, because I have an amplifier for each of the speakers. But then again, I don’t know if I should just sit there in front of the audiences and tweak with the volume controllers because that’s what people usually do, you know, in concerts...”
“So you think I should have as many chairs on stage as possible?” “Only if the projector doesn’t work. If the projector does work, you could have like 4 chairs on stage and that’s fine.” “Well I was thinking of 7, since there are 7 speaker chairs.” “Yeah, sure. 7 is good.”
“Well you don’t know how hard it’s gonna be to sit there and look at the audiences for 18 minutes, man. That’s hard.”
“If the projector doesn’t work, what you should do is, if it’s possible, make sure that there are as many seats on stage as there are audiences in the permanent audience seats. And use the light on the audience, not on the stage.” “Umm, that’s not possible because they only have a dozen extra chairs.” “...That’s too bad...”
“Yeah, yeah, you should not do nothing, you should watch whatever is being projected upon the audience.” “Yeah, that was my initial idea, to just be there and watch.”
“The other thing about projection, that I was thinking, is that throughout the 18 minutes I want the lighting to start totally dark and then over the 18 minutes, gradually get lighter. So in the end, towards the end, even though you move forward to the stage and look at the projection, it would be already hard to see it.” “That sounds good.”
“In terms of the projection, of all of the three options, the one that makes the most sense dramaturgically, is the one of the audience seats being projected to the audience seats, of course. But, umm, it just depends if that’s going to be visible or not. And if it’s not visible, then I don’t think it’s a good solution.” “But if that’s not visible...” “If it’s not recognizable. If a person who was in the audience moved down to the stage and looked at the projection, and they can’t recognize the image that is there...” “Yeah, yeah.” “Then I don’t think it’s a good solution. I mean, then it’s a solution in theory only but not in the actual piece, in the performed piece, so.”
“The other thing that I haven’t decided yet, is whether I should sit in the front or not. Since I’m recording everything beforehand, at least from my conception of the piece at this very moment, I wouldn’t have anything to do during the piece. So I want to use that.”
“So when I went there on Friday, I filmed the entire stage while I was setting up and trying out the transducers. So I have a footage of like an hour of me running around and trying out sounds. And I was thinking of projecting that.” “Maybe like speed it up?” “Yeah, or just choose an 18 minute fragment.”
“There will be extra chairs, like 6 empty chairs on the stage, facing the audience, and I would be sitting there just watching and hearing. And if an audience member wants to come up and sit there, because that’s the only place where they could listen to the whole thing, because otherwise, if they are inside the audience seats, all the sounds would be very localized according to where you sit, and how near you are to a speaker.”
“I really want to work at the site, at The Kitchen, because there’s a lot of things that I am just assuming. One of the things that I want to achieve in terms of dispersing these transducers, I mean, again, this is like what I do always, but to emphasize the feeling that what you’re hearing is only a fragment. And also at the same time, the feeling that there is a spot where you can perceive the whole, but in order to do that, you would have to move... The only reason I want to use the projector, is to make that more visible.”
“I mean, if you could achieve people moving to those chairs without being told to, you know, as a function of what they can see, or what they can hear, or having to choose between two of those things, or whatever, I think that’s strong.”
“Basically, what you’re doing is, creating a situation where they have to figure out that in order to see or hear the piece, they have to move.”
“I feel like whatever the title is for this piece is, it should be like, umm... I don’t know... like not so direct... like “Eggshells,” or something... I mean, not “Eggshells,” but like...” “...Like Easter?” “Yeah, maybe it’s because I just ate those eggs... but also because, you know, each of those speaker-seats is like little eggshell... little broken... thing... but... that’s not right. I don’t know.”
“The association with ‘ecology’ is not the primary one. The association will be with ‘echo,’ which I think is good, but a misreading.”
“I bet that means something in Esperanto. What does it mean?” “‘Eco’ means ‘quality’.” “Pretty good!”
“That’s very conservationist of you.” “What’s conservationist?” “Meaning there’s no waste product, like whatever is produced is used as the fodder of the next thing to be produced. Environmental.” “Eco...” “Eco, yeah... Maybe that’s what you should call this piece!” “‘Eco’?” “Yeah, eeh-cee-oh: ‘Eco’.” “...I like ‘Eco’.”
New York, 9 April - 9 May 2011
“You know... it doesn’t matter if the projector doesn’t work. I mean, personally, it would be nice if it’s possible, but if not, in terms of the fundamental structure of the piece, it doesn’t matter. It’s about distance, right?” “It’s about positioning... localization.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah... It’s about distance, right?”
“It seems that your pieces recently are becoming less and less concerned with sound.”
“It’s funny that you say that because I was thinking yesterday how to actually create the effect of fragmentedness of experience through sound. And I was thinking that it should be thoroughly composed... I would make connections that seem to resonate, but because there is distance, one can barely perceive it. I mean, the easiest thing would be to use a microphone and have feedback all over: microphone catches sound from one area and you can hear it in another area. But I think that wouldn’t create a feeling of fragmentedness. That would be...” “Yeah, the opposite.”
“You know what I mean? ‘Normally people bring in projects that they’ve done before and know will work in our space.’ It’s like, who knows anything’s gonna work in any place, ever? This is like the nature of making anything... you have no idea. Just because it worked in some other space, it means that it’s gonna work in their space? I don’t know, it’s just so ridiculous! It’s like, ‘The Kitchen! The home of experimental whatever! But don’t bring anything unless it’s going to work!’”
“The whole status of the audience is reversed. So the speakers are inside the audience, and the film is projected onto the audience.”
“Being projected in, the question then becomes, ‘who is that person?’ right?” “Right, right, right.” “I mean, the question, lets say, for any given audience, but also the question for the larger bird’s eye view of the piece, you know?” “And, and you’re already included, so...” “What do you mean?” “Well with these conversations...” “Right, right, right.” “It’s been part of the process of making the piece, specifically this piece, to talk with you.”
“Well it does have an ending in that all the sound’s gonna stop, and it seems like, umm, the ending’s gonna be different for different people, because for one group of people the sound will stop later than for others. Which means that half of the audiences may start applauding or whatever, and half not. I mean, basically, you know, you press ‘play’ and everything stops after 18 minutes, right? So I think, everything should stop. Including the projector. I mean, that’s gonna be the major cue.”
“But maybe the end of the 18 minute tracks, should be like, you know, in a staggered way, people starting to clap. You know, it’s like that thing where everyone’s like, ‘Is it over? Do I clap?’ It would be on the recording, so that would prompt the behavior of clapping.”
“You know what I always think about, whenever I go to see a performance? I mean, I think a lot of different things depending on what I’m looking at, but one thing that I almost always think, no matter what it is, is when is this going to end.”