SHADINGS is a hybrid work by composer Laura Elise Schwendinger
and lighting artist Leni Schwendinger.
View the video! Playing it UNsafe Composer Journeys: The Schwendingers
In 1993 Leni undertook a photographic research project in Japan, an exploration of ephemeral architecture and the “kare sansui”; Buddhist dry landscapes. Her medium, the short-lived black-and-white Polaroid transparency film, enhances the fragile atmosphere of her subject – ritual gardens and ever-changing earthen construction sites. The photographic slides were processed on the spot in Japan by a hand-powered, mechanical-cranked processing machine.
Leni Schwendinger’s image montage, inspired her cousin, Laura Schwendinger, to create an orchestral world of shimmery sounds and intense dramatic orchestral shadings for the American Composers Orchestra. The orchestral colors reflect the duality present in Leni’s images. These include rich pearlescent tones, in shades of grey, found in the scenes of the serene Japanese rock gardens, as well as those found in darker more intense industrial images taken at nearby building sites. The duality presented in the projections, are reflected in the musical score’s two personas.
These seemingly different qualities are intrinsically connected by the visual relationship of the two visual worlds. The tones of light, dark, grey and shadow, as well as the shapes present in both worlds, those of the gardens and of the industrial scenes, seem to carry the same mystery of geometry and space. In SHADINGS, Laura Schwendinger explores these connections and duality in an orchestral soundscape that attempts to amplify the beauty and wonder of Leni’s delicate and sensitive eye.
The music will be completed only in the presence of the lighting and vice-versa. Unlike other recent multidisciplinary forays, this work seeks to be a true collaboration between these two artistic mediums, offering a door to a possible synesthetic connection between the two approaches, combining two different levels of perception – aural and visual.