Transports

Video score by Eduardo Cossio

”what is it to read an image? Eduardo

reflections on an interpretation, july 20, 2024

when approaching this kind of ‘non-directive’, aleotoric-in-regard-to-performance score, one immediately encounters a problematic situation, where the means to determine what is suitable cannot be grasped. the problem of the situation is one of a lack of foreclosure, which renders all processes if decision-making, all conception if sonic parameters, in a state of flux. the score, and it’s fidelity to performance elude analysis. thus, in lieu of concepts and constructs that are stable and constant, one is left with only the moment of encounter; between score and performance; between phenomena and processes of meaning-making.

in my realisation of eduardo’s score, i choose to follow his prompt to ‘read’ an image. there is only one instruction; to follow the images as closely as possible, however, as outlined above, this is more so an absence of directive, which draws on the contingency of a multiplicity of what it means ‘to follow’, and the means with which to do so. in the instance of my interpretation, i am working with a small synth, a field recording and magnetic tape. with these means it is simply impossible to manipulate the contours of the sound with the contours of the moving image. in any case, the contour of the image expands, contracts, and collapses back in on itself, in a way that is likely to derail any deliberate mapping to sonic parameters. the materials with which i have chose to work tend to produce fragmented sounds that rarely, if ever, correspond to the glacial movement of the image. thus, my performance is an attempt to reconcile the disparity between these two media. and the basis for this reconciliation has no guideline nor referent, other than the phenomenal experience of their encounter.