Rechenzentrum

Last night we saw a screening of Rechenzentrum's latest DVD entitled Silence. Rechenzentrum is the duo of Marc Weiser (music) and Lillevan (visuals). The dvd consisted of 13 vignettes of music and video. Lillevan gave a brief q&a after the screening, in which he explained that dvds such as this are not the end product of their work as a duo, but rather the live semi-improvised collaborations are the final product. He went on to explain that this dvd was a snapshot of what they were doing at the time, and that their work together was always evolving and changing.

I'm not unfamiliar with multimedia works such as this, however I'm more familiar with the Montreal style works of composers like Jean Piche. This collaboration I found to be a bit more disjointed - it seemed to me that neither the music nor the video had any focal point, but instead seemed to support each other. While this does ensure the integration of both, it leaves the overall work somewhat directionless. The music I didn't find overly compelling, and while the visuals captured my attention, I didn't find they held it for the near-hour of the work. I don't mean to suggest that such a work needs to be framed within a narrative, or take more of a clear direction, however I would have liked to have seen or heard more presence from either aspect. Perhaps if the music were more engaging it would have carried me along better. Instead, the first 8 or 16 bars of each piece/song more or less revealed the entire scope of the tune.

I can't say I didn't enjoy it, or that I wasn't intrigued by it, but I can't say I'd readily go see/hear it again. I would, however, be quite interested to see their live show, where, as Lillevan explained, he works with thousands of video bits and arranges them on the fly as the music and his own intuition dictate.

I'd love to hear comments from someone more familiar with these types of works, so by all means, comment away! Tell me how I completely missed the boat, how naive I am, etc.!