From the first moment, I liked the idea of the Soundscapes series. Maybe because music has had a great impact on my life; I can see images when I hear music and I hear music when I see images. This synesthetic sensibility is intrinsic to the project. I also find it very interesting to bring together two artists from different fields of expression and combine their artistic souls.
— Katarzyna Adamek-Chase
There is nothing new in the pairing of the visual arts and music. We just need to look at theatre, opera or the countless times a museum/art gallery has served as a stage for a concert. Artists and musicians will always collaborate in multi, inter and meta-disciplinary projects. Colour and sound will always get along even if they clash. Their synesthetic nature will continually fascinate and stimulate. As creative disciplines, however, it’s not difficult to find a common ground to be explored and rediscovered and finally exploited and reinvented. Nothing new under the sun, except its own beams of light.
Soundscapes acts like a prism that deflects, disperses and reflects both, music and art, allowing for a novel appreciation of their own individual value and synergy. It is above all a mise-en-scène where two actors, an artist and a musician, perform individually and collectively, apart but together. A curated space where an improvised choreography of notes and tones takes place: a palette of sounds and a harmony of colour.
The idea of Soundscapes stemmed from two different projects: Kraków Music and Artful PL. As soon as Kraków Music proved to be a viable means for community building and a valuable source of artistic synergy, it was a matter of time until these two online initiatives converged.
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Artful PL is an exercise, for the most part. Its realm is limited (Facebook) and very personal (a love for the visual arts and curatorial commentary). The idea is to find an artwork that grabs my attention (aesthetically or intellectually), observe it, study it, break it apart, talk about it with as much freedom and play as possible and post it.
One Musician, One Artist, One Instrument, One Work of Art
The format was inspired by a blog series yet to be realised called Art in Poland One on One. Instead of solely focusing on art and its direct stakeholders and opinion-makers such as artists, curators, art directors and critics, Soundscapes aims to provide a different appreciation of art and music by pairing a musician with a single instrument with one work of art by an artist. Bringing together two creative minds from two different artistic fields gives their work a new aesthetic layer and extra room for meaning and interpretations.
Episode 1: Thymn & Kasia
The Soundscapes projects unlocked a new level of artistic, aesthetic and synesthetic sensibility that I hadn’t previously encountered in any of the many musical and artistic projects I’ve been involved with for the better part of three decades. It was fun, challenging, scary and exhilarating. I can only hope that the listeners and viewers enjoy it half as much as the creators.
— Thymn Chase
While the idea was still clear and fresh, the shooting of the pilot was rushed. A couple of weeks after adding the post about Kasia’s work (see on Facebook) I picked up the phone and called my friend Thymn, a talented musician and Kasia’s husband, to present him with the idea. “Call Kasia, the exhibition at the Raven Gallery is about to end.” Both of them agreed to take part in the project almost immediately and Kasia made sure to get gallery owner Zofia Kruk on board.
I think it was a Monday, perhaps a Tuesday when we all met at the Raven Gallery in Kazimierz. On very short notice, Mikołaj from HumanStories Studio squeezed some time in his schedule to help out. As soon as he arrived, he was briefed on the idea. When Thymn got there with his melodica the cameras were ready to shoot, but we were still discussing strategy. There was no plan, no guidelines, no programme, just a concept, a musician ready to play, a videographer ready to go and Kasia’s monochromatic drawing hanging on the wall gazing at us and our ad-lib enterprise.
An unexpected intimacy started to fill up the space as the melodica chords reverberated across the tiny gallery. Two takes for a total of ten to fifteen minutes and we were done. While listening to the music and staring at the drawing, however, it felt like much longer. I was the only person in a unique and one-time performance. I found myself contemplating the drawing and letting the music take over. I could almost see the bodies moving, flowing like a sea of flesh. The way Thymn was playing was also mesmerising and his own trance became mine. It was all a short-lived reverie. As we sipped our coffee in a nearby cafe after leaving the gallery, it still felt like I was daydreaming.
Later, while watching Thymn playing the melodica in the pilot episode and listening to Kasia’s ideas behind her work, it all came together perfectly. She says: “The work is inspired by the idea that the memory of the flesh is independent of our cognitive selves. Throughout our lives, our body accumulates emotions, it learns and absorbs countless acts and gestures; it gives and is given – it takes and is taken.”
What a beautiful truth and fitting statement for all musicians. It made me think about the symbiotic relation between body and musical instrument. They both need and complement each other. The body as instrument and the instrument as an extension of the body. What the body has learned and remembers, the right movements and precise gestures, it gives. Simultaneoulsy it is taken. It is the memory of the flesh that plays the instrument while the music transports both the musician and the audience to another plane outside of their cognitive selves. An act of ecstasy.
Thank you Thymn. Thank you Kasia.
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[…] idea carried out by Kraków Music and Artful PL, Soundscapes pairs a musician playing a single instrument with one artwork by an artist. The pilot episode […]