Appartenenze - Icarus Ensemble

“In C” by Terry Riley is widely seen as the manifesto of Minimalism in music. The composition consist in fifty-three very short sections to be repeated at will, following the indicated sequence, for a time ranging from forty-five minutes to ninety minutes. The rhythmic beat is given by a high, persisting C throughout the entire piece. As it is, in Riley’s renowned piece several features of 1960’s American culture seem to blend together , with Cage’s lesson, mediated through Fluxus, living side by side with the newly-rediscovered eastern philosophies witch had such impact on the West Coast, ever more distancing itself from its rival, the Village in New York. Musician start playing without having to do it in synchronously and repeat each pattern at will according to their individual inclination, thus conferring a double and contradictory trait to the piece: on the one hand music written strictly according to the western tradition, and on the other hand open to an essentialy improvised inspiration. The performance of the piece by Icarus Ensemble Icarus vs Muzak is accompanied by the video-installation “Appartenenze. Close-ups like you’ve never seen before” by OOOPStudio. The installation presents a mix of images showing partial components and shapes from more complex structures. The fragments thus become visual score of a composition manifesting itself in its entirety only thrught the audience’s eyes, through a process the group define as “belonging”.