ECLAT 8

at close quarters

Installation und Performance (2018/19) ^WP

Composition and performance: Philipp Krebs
Performance: Neus Estarellas

30-minute performances at 2:45 p.m., 5:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.

In the beginning there was the simple idea for a work for piano solo. In discussions between the composer Philipp Krebs and the pianist Neus Estarellas, however, an adventurous long-term project was born. For one year she sent him a »media snapshot« almost daily–photos, videos or sound recordings from her life, which he chronologically archived, analysed and processed into a matrix by dividing the activities into »work« or »leisure«, but also »pauses« for days without a message. This is now the »score« for a one-day performance at the festival.

The focus is on a discarded piano. It will be completely renovated in the course of the day. Four half-hour composed performances interrupt this process–and they are also subject to a »re-interpretation« of the working conditions: The composer himself acts on the prepared and microphoned piano, thus providing the sound basis for the pianist’s electroacoustic manipulations remotely controlled. Thus the composer becomes a worker under the control of the interpreter. The sound setup deals with gradations of proximity and distance, for which both the exterior and the piano interior are played by loudspeakers and made visible to the audience in various stages of video zoom.