University of York Music Department
The Kreutzer Quartet.

 

PhD candidate Emily Kalies takes part in STEAM collaboration in Boston, USA

October 23th, 2009


PhD candidate in composition Emily Kalies, studying under Roger Marsh, spent most of September in Boston USA collaborating with film artist and creative designer at MIT Ellen Sebring, environmental artist and steam sculptor Joan Brigham and lighting designer Walter Dent.

Image from STEAM collaboration

Emily writes: "The subject material for our collaboration was the aeolipile works by Joan Brigham. These amazing glass kinetic sculptures use steam to propel the movement of the works. Each sculpture distributes and uses steam in different ways to catch the light as it flows up into the air. It is this movement of steam that Joan has spent her career exploring whether through her aeolipiles or environmental sculptures.

Ellen Sebring visually explored these aeolipiles through the use of video. Unconventionally most of Ellen’s work is done freehand allowing her to move over the sculptures in different ways and film from constantly changing perspectives. Because of this Walter Dent our fantastic lighting designer had to continually move and redistribute the lighting to help capture the glass and steam from the best perspective.

The music and audio for this piece is a mixture of composed music for piano trio with improvised lines from the violinist responding to video clips for the sculptures as well as incorporating the natural sounds of the sculptures into the soundtrack.

This collaboration was very free and expressive from all involved. Between the dance of the lighting designer and film artist constantly moving to capture different perspectives of these amazing kinetic glass sculptures and the interesting sounds these pieces make, this was an inspirational and balanced collaboration."

*This collaboration was partially funded by the Music Department Research Committee, which was greatly appreciated by the recipients.