A Tribute to Xenakis
Collage on papers
2014
This project was inspired by the influential avant-grant composer/ architect Iannis Xenakis. Starting in the mid-1950s, Xenakis introduced advanced mathematics as an organizational principle. In his composition, science and aethetics mingle in a rational and yet unearthly way.
Notation is an approach of embodying. It makes the abstract concept visible or even touchable. Architecture is a field of embodying concepts. Volumes are the notation of the invisible spaces. On the other hand, manuscripts notation is the way we see the melodies. Xenakis’s works created a new interplay between hands and sound. He was working through strategies to deploy physics and mathematics as means to organize sound. Having been influential in the both architecture and music fields, Xenakis became an iconic role to me by the time I was forming the initial idea of my thesis.
I was touched when I read this note of him. I also believe the idea that the primitive status is somewhere genuineness lie and is always worth excavate. These series of collages were made after I studied his works.
