Control Issues
Control (2005)
takes its material from the personal, extra-musical
expressions normally given by a pianist during performance
and weaves the now artificial expressions into a formal,
cyclical structure of repetitions and shifting
juxtapositions.
Additionally,
due to the extreme sparseness of the music and its reliance
on sight as well as sound, the score specifies the physical
appearance and demeanor of the pianist to a much higher
degree than usual (in music—in film, the convention
is to take this even further). However, Control
is not a
piece of conceptual art: it is not necessary for the
observer to know that the clothing on the pianist is
detailed in the score: the purpose, in the same way as
choosing an e versus an e-flat, is experiential.
One of these specifications is that the pianist be female.
This, combined with the work’s control of the body,
denial of real personal expression (replaced with forcible
reproduction), and the fact that its author is male, may
predictably ignite controversy, or simple disgust. But I
can say for myself that it was not my interest to
participate in any commentary on the historical denial of
women as subjects, nor do I believe it was an unconscious
wish to control the bodies and expressions of women that
caused me to designate a female pianist. My motivation for
this was that in women I perceive a greater ability to
project an image of sterility. It might be argued that this
potential gains its power in its opposition to
women’s depiction as fertility symbols (and thus
somehow participates in gender stereotypes)—but
regardless, my choice was an aesthetic one, and was not
politically or sexually based.
The
specification, for example, that the pianist not show
“long smile-lines at the sides of her mouth,”
is in no way participating in the devaluation of elder
women or denial of their sexuality. The reason is quite
simple: pronounced smile-lines interfere with the
projection of sterility, and of a blank demeanor, and this
dynamic is vital to the success of the work’s total
project, which has nothing to do with gender at all, but
rather to form a reservoir of unexpected emotional and
perceptual complexity.
In closing, I would like to say that perhaps it is naïve of
me to think that a work like Control
can
escape associations with gender-politics, but I feel it the
artist’s responsibility to do what s/he thinks right,
even if it means a work is temporarily subsumed by
irrelevant controversy. I have done this to the best of my
ability, and no decision can be pure, no artwork perfect.
But I believe in this piece.
Get the score here:
Control