Cecilia Arditto: The speaking house

by JukeBoxx NewMusic · Published 20. September 2019 · Updated 4. July 2024

I have a collection of over 40 identical slide projectors, brand Leitz 150 built in Germany during the 40s and 60s that I bought meticulously over the years. This technology, although designed for home=use, has an astonishing quality that makes them able for professional performances.

The projectors are connected via an interface to a computer that controls them. The warmness of the vintage valve-lamps is powered by the precise execution via digital manipulation. The analog-digital combination makes possible to create precise features like extremely slow intensity-fades or fast patterns combining multiple projectors. In “La casa (The House)” the analog dialogues with the digital, enhancing one each other. As a reflection is it curious to see how the digital lights with its million colors cannot surpass the quality of analogous light yet!

The slide projectors with their light eyes spread the images all over the space, creating 3d screens in walls, stairs, ceiling, and columns in dialogue with the architecture of the space.

The philosopher Gaston Bachelard defines the concept of a house like an intimate space, which has little to do with geometry or architecture. Instead of the room embracing the person staying inside. I like to think that is the performer who brings emotion to space and embraced the house from the inside out.

If you are interested in knowing more about the relationship between music and architecture, you can check the predecessor of this project called “Musique Concrete”. http://www.ceciliaarditto.com/pdf/MUSIQUECONCRETEDUO.pdf

A collection of identical slide projectors is located in the space pointing different spots in the room, discovering unusual corners of the building under original and crazy perspectives. By turning the lights on and off and by using expressive intensity-fades the whole surrounding space acquires a performative feature mutating under our own eyes. Pierre Schaeffer, the creator of concrete music, talks about music as an “architecture that sings” in “La casa (the house)”, this metaphor becomes real.

As a bonus track, the slide-projectors themselves are not only a medium but part of the composition. It is beautiful to see them in action.

Biografie der Autorin:

Cecilia Arditto, Buenos Aires, 1966 studied music at the Conservatorio Julián Aguirre, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Música Contemporánea (CEAMC) and Conservatory of Amsterdam (cum laude); she took composition lessons in Argentina with Gabriel Valverde and Mariano Etkin; analysis with Margarita Fernandez among others.

Prizes and stipendia: First Composition Prize CCRR-CEAMC 1996, “Buenos Aires No Duerme¨ Prize 1998, Mention Concurso Radio Clásica, Concurso de Composición CEAMC-Arditti String Quartet, Antorchas Scholarship for two consecutive years, Fondo Nacional de las Artes Prize, etc. Her music was selected for the “3rd Forum International de Jeunes Compositeurs de l’Ensemble l’Aleph, France, the “Boswil International Composition Seminar”, Switzerland and the “Music at the Anthology Festival” in New York for two editions. She was granted a residential grant at the Camargo residence for artists in France to work in my chamber opera “The daughter of the sorceress…” She was guest composer at the Udk, Berlin in two opportunities, and she was granted commissions from the NFPK, Stichting Kous and Orgelpark among others in Holland. She was invited to Borealis festival in Norway and Festival Rümlingen in Switzerland. She is very active in the Argentine new music scene continuously collaborating with ensembles and performers.

Her music has been performed in Latin American, Asia, USA and Europe. Some of her pieces are being constantly played by different performers all over the world, like “Musica invisible for flute” performed by more than 20 different flutists. http://www.ceciliaarditto.com/www.ceciliaarditto.com/news.html

Since 2009 is the artistic leader of Stichting planB, a foundation based on Holland devoted to research in music-theater and multidisciplinary events, with strong emphasis in music notation. http://www.stichtingplanb.com/

Together with Dutch photographer and guitar player Daniel Nicolas she has a duo experimenting in music related with visual aspects.

In 2018 Cecilia got the following prizes: New Maker Ensemble (London) Call for scores; Low Frequency Trio Composition competition (Mexico); Wilde Lieder Marx Music Competition (second prize) by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Her new piece “Distancia de rescate”, for 8 cellos was premiered by Innovations in concert, Montreal, in November 2018.

She publishes her music in Plante Editions, Berlin. http://editionplante.com/

Since 2012 she is a Bikram yoga teacher, giving classes all over the world together with her music activities. Since 2002 she lives in Amsterdam.