Locational Aesthetics: Squashing – Andy Ingamells (Birmingham Conservatoire, PhD)

Locational Aesthetics: Squashing

Andy Ingamells (Birmingham Conservatoire, PhD)

Abstract

I can’t write a good opening sentence. I’m not a writer. I write music instead.

‘Locational Aesthetics: Squashing’ is a transcription of a short feature recorded for broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM (https://www.resonancefm.com) as part of Drivetime Underground (http://www.drivetimeunderground.com), a “dissonant combination of the highbrow and the lowbrow”.

Unfortunately this recording was never broadcast.

Portions of the text were devised in collaboration with German artist Ludwig Abraham and performed by the both of us whilst playing squash in an empty museum in Marburg.

The text itself is an invitation to perform, and works best if the reader focusses on the altered sounds of their voice when reading. A variation on the task could be to try reading the text whilst playing squash.

According to quoteinvestigator.com, the line “talking about music is like dancing about architecture” has been attributed to many different people including: Laurie Anderson, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Clara Schumann, Elvis Costello, Steve Martin and Thelonious Monk. However they conclude that American comedian Martin Mull probably came up with it first.

For further reading on text-as-music please follow these links:

TEXT exhibition blog post from BCU http://blogs.bcu.ac.uk/parksidegallery/2016/03/11/new-musical-score-exhibition-text-encourages-people-to-think-about-music-in-a-different-way/

Text Score A Day twitter feed https://twitter.com/textscoreaday.

 

Locational Aesthetics- Squashing