An installation and performance of a composition by John Cage.
Tuesday 18 June 2024 – University of Glasgow Chapel – Free
For this event, we are pleased to present the first Icelandic version of John Cage’s 1979 composition, Circus On, which originally used Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to transform a book into a musical performance Roaratorio, An Irish Circus On Finnegans Wake. A book is transformed into a performance by re-writing it in its entirety as mesostic poetry–a form invented by Cage similar to acrostic poetry but with stringent rules–recording all of the music, sounds, and places mentioned in the book and adding relevant music. The final combination of all of this is then decided using chance. In this Icelandic version, Skerpla, Experimental Sound Lab from the Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavik, led by Professor Berglind Tómasdóttir, working with Glasgow University PhD candidate and Cage specialist, Victoria Miguel, have transformed Dagur Hjartarson’s novel, Ljósagangur, a science fiction love story about a mysterious sound that can be heard in the city of Reykjavík, into an installation and hour-long live musical performance. This work is being previewed at the Reykjavik Arts Festival on 11 June before the performers bring it to Glasgow for the first UK performance.
The event at Glasgow is split into two parts.
At 7:30pm there will be a live performance of this new composition, produced by following Cage’s instructions: Niður, an Icelandic Circus on Ljósagangur. This live evening performance is free, but please book your place using Eventbrite.
From 5pm-7pm there will be an installation of sound pieces by Skerpla, Experimental Sound Lab inspired by Niður, an Icelandic Circus on Ljósagangur. While working on Circus On we gathered a lot of recordings that were not included in the final version because Cage’s composition uses chance operations to determine what will make the final cut. The installation has allowed us to make use of this leftover material, which is also inspired by the concept of “the thrum of the dead,” from Dagur Hjartarson’s novel, Ljósagangur. (Niður can be translated as thrum.) This material includes recordings of the sounds and places mentioned in the novel, the sounds of Reykjavík, along with a layer of live music. The installation comprises these recordings as well as live performances that are longer than those included in the composition, which strictly limits the ratio of music to ‘silence.’
Visitors to the chapel are welcome to observe this installation, moving in and around performers, whilst it is running. This part of the event is not ticketed, but numbers will be monitored for the purposes of safety.
We would like to thank Dagur Hjartarson, Jesper Pederson, Matthew Creasy, John Coyle, Björn Heile, Calum Scott, Kerensa Ballantyne, Fin Pointing, Ivan Sanchez Hervas, Jenny Alexander, Robert Davies, Carolyn Kelly, Joan Keenan, SGSAH, Iceland University of the Arts Research Fund, the Chancellor’s Fund at the University of Glasgow, and Glasgow University Chapel.