An Arrangement without Tormentors, 2003-2004
Both projection surfaces face each other at an obtuse angle and show two pianists singing the same song. The situation is a rehearsal: The camera circles the musicians, the audience are walking about, the performance is repeatedly interrupted and the film clapper board presents a new shot. This spatial arrangement without a backdrop is additionally fragmented by the cut, so that the song “I like to dance” is never heard entirely without interruption. On the left, we see the artist Charles Gaines who is also the song’s composer, during a performance at the opening of an exhibition in Los Angeles in 2000. In the projection on the right, Dutch pianist Nora Mulder is performing the piece in Rotterdam in 2003. Both performances are split up according to a predefined system, so that the elements do not appear in chronological order, their interruptions appear arbitrary and the piece is never even heard in full. At the same time, the sections of the two interpretations merge periodically as in a duet.

Text: Barbara Engelbach, from the publication “Junger Ankauf”, Cologne 2012