Agape ( /əˈɡāp/ )

Instrumentation | open / installation work
Date | 2021
Duration | indeterminate
Premiere | commissioned by Sequences Art Festival Biennal and premiered at Kling & Bang Gallery

A text/graphic score calls for the performers to predetermine a sonic path unique to their own individual interpretation; they are instructed to navigate a sequence of changes in harmony with circular movements. Performers can come to mutual agreements on aspects of their individual performances regarding intensity/tonality/etc., but this is not necessary or necessarily wanted. Seeking to excavate an individual performer’s fingerprint, what becomes interesting here is how they choose to deliberate and deliver their navigation. Their performances are then collapsed together so a listener/observer can experience the contrast of these interpretations of the “same” moment - through conflating time, the activation of the vertical exposes the manifoldness of the horizontal.

The resulting materials of audio/video are installed in multichannel form onto gallery walls.

Agape was nominated for “work of the year” in the classical/contemporary category at the Icelandic Music Awards 2022

Agape ( /əˈgāp/ ) : wide open

Below: Agape as performed by Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir, Matthias Engler, John McCowen and Júlía Mogensen, cinematography by Derrick Belcham, camera work/editing by Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir. Installed at Kling & Bang Gallery as part of Sequences Art Festival biennal 2021.