Coppice

performed multi-channel installation in three movements
2010 | variable dimensions | 40 minutes

Performance view of fourth iteration at ACRE Projects (Chicago), with sculptures by Alex Miller

Copse is a three-movement composition for performed multi-channel installation; based on the atomization and dispersal of instrumental aspects.  The products/by-products of the instrumentation are separated and shuffled spatially and temporally, in an effort to present the parts-to-the-whole relationships as fluid and continuous.

The instrumentation consists of multi-channel audio, tapes, custom electronics, shruti box, pitch pipes, harmonica, and acoustic filters.

Installation view of fourth iteration at ACRE Projects (Chicago), with sculptures by Alex Miller

The piece springs into the first movement, The Pleasance, a spot for stopping.  It is performed stillness, constellations of crackling blown about.  This gives way to (first easement), a discreet section that is neither central nor surround.  The first clear tones herald the beginning of Copse, the final movement and also of the title of the whole – an active focal point with offshoots that grow out and disappear.

The three movements of Copse are monochromatic and peripheral.  They have been habituated for various performance settings including stage, gallery, and garden.  The first movement can be elongated and unmanned for an ongoing installation setting.

Eleven small speakers playing a multitude of prerecorded sounds  as well as processed sounds of live shruti box performance were used as a performance instrument.  By moving the small speakers across a custom inductive mixing table the sounds were diffused through a low wattage multichannel distribution system to an additional eight speakers distributed throughout the performance space.  Focus was placed on the creation of spaces and in shifting audience attention between sound environments and live musical performance.

Installation view of second iteration at the 2010 Spark Festival (Minneapolis)

Performance view of second iteration at the 2010 Spark Festival (Minneapolis); photo by Andrew Amundsen

Video still from 2010 Spark Festival (Minneapolis)

Video still from 2010 Spark Festival (Minneapolis)

Several iterations of Copse were complemented with sculpture and installation work by artist Alex Miller. His current body of work, beginning as an investigation in self-portraiture, bases itself around the themes of artifact, the act of discovery and the unearthing of objects. Other works focus on simplified forms; utilizing limited materials and color palettes to create objects that carry inexplicable weight in their presence.

First iteration at Campbell House (Chicago), with sculptures by Alex Miller

Performances

• December 3, 2010 – Copse, ACRE Projects; Chicago, IL
• October 2, 2010 – Sugar Maple; Milwaukee, WI
• September 30, 2010 – Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts, Quarter Gallery, Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota; Minneapolis, MN
• September 4, 2010 – Sound & Cultivation, Campbell House; Chicago, IL

Press

[...] This was probably the most delicate performance I’ve ever attended – a packed audience of all ages milling feet away in and around the performers soft-shoed silently under the music, which was sometimes only as loud as the imperceptible gasp of air releasing from the bellows of a hand-pump organ. Coppice is a duo who play acoustic/mechanical and homebrew electronic instruments in such a precise way that the meticulously organized crackles of Xenakis’ Concrete PH might blush. It’s not precise music in the sense of a virtuosic cellist realizing a Ferneyhough score exactly motion-for-inkblot, but in the sense of deftly listening through the absolutely tiny variations in sound that these fragile instruments produce and coaxing them gently to behave, aggregate, and bend. Virtuosic and exact listening. [...]

They set up 8 speakers around the room, hiding them under tables, putting them in the creases of the ceiling, etc. Played an incredible set of crackles and pops that slowly built and absolutely never got louder than a whisper.

I remember feeling very relaxed and intrigued by the pieces from which the sounds were coming–this may be due to its waves of soft airy whooshes coming from some sort of amplified wind box. This was complimented nicely by the subtle twinklings of feedback by his counterpart. There were also some pipes and whistles or additional windy wisps, that were used by the two men. All together it had a very ethereal effect on me due to all these light headed sounds of swoops and swells.