On Saturday we saw “Ce qui arrive”, a multi-media installation/concert by modern composer Olga Neuwirth. The setup consisted of a large screen which had a woman dancing/walking/sitting/singing in front of a roaring ocean scene, accompanied by angry spurts of music produced by a small orchestra. Finally, which was the real reason why I went there in the first place (well, apart from the fact that my sister got me in there for much less), the whole thing was wrapped around a voice reading from Paul Auster’s “Hand to Mouth”, which I thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago. Oh, and the voice was Paul Auster himself (not actually present, but from the can).
Throughout the whole thing, it was mainly Paul Auster’s voice which kept me awake, the rest was just too random to keep my attention for longer than ten minutes.
Now, Olga Neuwirth is quite an established modern composer – in case you don’t trust me, here’s a link to back up my claim – but I’m apparently just not succeptible to the joys of modern compositions. Maybe it’s because I tend to suspect bullshit behind everything, thus not being able to “trust” whatever these people throw at me. Maybe Neuwirth’s composition is ingenius, but maybe it’s just cleverly disguised nothingness. In these situations, I usually opt for the nothingness, but this may be due to my cleverly disguised ignorance.