Margarethe, Maierhofer-Lischka

English

Array, the journal of the International Computer Music Association

array2022Vertigo of the ears and eyes:Embodied experiences of hybridspatiality in Brice Pauset’s Ver-tigo/Infinite Screen (2021)By Margarethe Maierhofer-LischkaRecent research on musical perfor-mance highlights music listening asan embodied activity strongly influ-enced by and connected to mentalrepresentations of music-relatedmovement schemata (Cox 2016).Listening thus can be considered aninner “dance on memorizedschemata” (Stahnke 2001, 25) thatcombines inputs from hearing,touch, vision and bodily motion(Schroedter 2017). Especially com-posers of contemporary music chal-lenge their listeners by creatingcomplex tonal, temporal and spatialimpressions (Utz 2016, 602-609),a phenomenon which is broughtfurther by the increasing use ofelectronic audiovisual media. Beingimmersed into an audiovisual per-formance can be pleasurable, but itcan also make listeners feel painfulor sick. This article examines theperceptual phenomenon of vertigoin regard to musical intermedia per-formance, demonstrated by a briefanalysis of Vertigo/Infinite Screen(2021) by French composer BricespacePauset, an intermedia piece inhomage to Alfred Hitchcock’s iconicfilm Vertigo (1958). Many currentintermedia compositions call intoquestion the distinction between“live”and “mediatized”, physical andvirtual, resulting in a growing bodyof scholarship on musical multime-dia or intermedia performance (cf.Auslander 2008, Chapple & Katten-belt 2006). The following analysisshows how Vertigo/Infinite Screenplays with sensations of vertigo byblurring the boundaries betweenexperiences of real and virtual spacethrough sound and moving images.Vertigo describes disorders of thegravitational sense located in the in-ner ear, resulting in partial loss ofspatial orientation and movementcoordination. Those can be causedby turning motions of the body(motion-induced vertigo) or theycan appear as somatoformic vertigorelated to mental disorders. Somato-formic vertigo can result from pho-bias, depression and schizophrenia,as well as from the consumption ofmedia (Brandt et al. 2013, 146ff.).Vertigo as media sickness resultsfrom incoherent and excessive sen-sory stimuli that create sensory trau-mata resulting in somatic reactions8array2022of the nervous system. Recent stud-ies show that vertigo appears in asignificant number of people in cor-relation with experiences of virtual(VR) environments. It can be alsocaused by wearing noise-cancellingheadphones (Dan-Goor & Samra2012, Chattha et al. 2020). Virtualreality can be defined generally asa medially created environment thatemploys several modalities (vision,hearing, touch) to imitate or imple-ment sensory features, behaviorsand qualities of known physical en-vironments, thus allowing for under-standing and purposeful interaction(Doerner et al. 2014, 3ff.). FollowingEric Clarke (2013), a musical piececan also be considered a virtualspace, making listening an effortof balancing between the real andthe virtual. Sociologist ShuheiHoso-kawa had already describednegative effects when listeners’attention navigates between virtualand physical sonic environments,which he dubbed as the “walkmaneffect” (Hosokawa 1984). WhileHosokawa had referred to urbancontexts, Nicholas Cook later onsuggested three categories to de-scribe intermedial relations in per-formance: conformance, comple-mentation and contest (Cook 2001).spaceMedia-induced vertigo can be un-derstood as a result of states of con-test between hearing and vision aswell as between virtual and real-world experience.Hitchcock’s Vertigo is considered alandmark of suspense cinema. Thefilm tells the story of a policemanfalling in love with a woman whocommits suicide. In an attempt torelive his failed relationship, hestarts an affair with a young girlwhich also ends tragically. Vertigo isconsidered one of Hitchcock’s mainworks and has received consider-able attention in film studies for itsintricate visual language. The lossof perspective and orientation capti-vating the characters throughoutthe film is presented as visual forcethat destroys their attempts to re-gain individual agency (Cavalletti2022). Hitchcock used a special cam-era technique, the Dolly-Zoom (lateralso called Vertigo effect), to repre-sent vertigo by distortion of per-spective and visual space (Hasche &Ingwer 2016, 148f ). The iconic filmscore by Bernhard Herrmannpresents an auditory maze made ofconstantly looping motives, avoid-ing a tonal centre or formal direc-tion (Gelly 2021).9array2022 spacenotated as an own part in the score.The performance happens in a blackspace, rendering the orchestrabarely visible against the brightFig. 1: Vertigo/Infinite Screen, performance by Klangforum Wien 20211Vertigo/Infinite Screen screen waspremiered 2021 at the Wittener Tagefür Neue Kammermusik. It featuresan orchestra in six groups, electronicsounds and a visual installation.The composition follows closely theform and structure of the film, incor-porating elements of Herrmann’ssoundtrack as well as sound snip-pets from the film’s dialogue andfoley. The visual part of Vertigo/Infinite Screen is a video installationpresented on a giant projection wallmade up of a grid of 9x2 LED panels.The visuals are performed live onscreen. In the beginning, swirlingchords cross all instrumentalgroups. Sudden appearances offilm-stills create moments of incar-nated perception (Kaltenecker2008), followed by darkness andcolor flashes disturbing the sense oftime, body and space. Unlike in thefilm, visuals and music do not createa common narrative but two parallelsensory inputs (Auslander 2013).While Pauset’s music has nuanceddynamics, the visuals retain highcontrast, strong colours and highspeed.10array2022One scene in Hitchcock’s Vertigo fea-tures recorded music playing from agramophone. Hitchcock wanted therecord to sound fragile and blurred,almost hallucinogenic. In Vertigo/Infinite Screen, Pauset picks this upand lets fragments of the gramo-phone music appear in the elec-tronics (Pauset 2021, bar 42ff., 288ff.)These inserts are a key element forcreating sound-related impressionsof vertigo: they are clearly tonaland melodic, marking a shift fromthe harmonic and temporal disori-entation happening in the begin-ning section towards a momentof recognition of known elements(Schroedter 2017, 225). Throughoutthe piece, the inserts becomelonger, dislocating and warping theorchestral sounds until the spatial-ized electronics sometimes takelead over the acoustic instruments.The recognizable acoustic and vis-ual features of the physical room areconstantly blurred and overwrittenby the fast-changing flashes of lightand dark and the changing sonicspace created by the electronics.When entering the performance,the listeners arrive with a perceptionof the physical space that gets sub-sequently confused by the virtualaudiovisual environment whichspaceremains inconsistent and fluid, in-troducing slips of perceptual disori-entation, a “Tasten und Zögern”(Waldenfels 2007, 19). Like the“walkman effect”, a subtle estrange-ment happens between the listen-ers’proprioception and the impres-sions of the virtual space. Through-out the piece, electronic sound andvisuals are used in conformance – tospeak with Cook – to create a situa-tion of sensory overload, competingfor attention. The fast-changing vis-ual and auditory spatialities chal-lenge the perceptual capacity of theaudience, stimulating embodiedexperiences similar to VR-inducedmotion sickness. Unlike artists whointended their piece to pose a cri-tique against contemporary mediaaccesses, the actual use of audiovi-sual media in Vertigo/Infinite Screenappears like a “psychic apparatus”, aterm Friedrich Kittler (1995, 352ff.)introduced to describe electronicmedia’s potential to modulate thepsychic states of an audience.Vertigo/Infinite Screen is not only abare retelling of Hitchcock’s movie.It uses the unsettling potential ofexcessive visible and audible move-ment dynamics to transfer the film’svisual effects into the sonic and spa-tial domain. It draws from embodied11array2022listening to place motion sickness,or vertigo, at the heart of an intensespatial and audio-visual experience.Notes[1] Brice Pauset / Arotin & Serghei:Vertigo/Infinite Screen (2020-21),intermedial composition based onAlfred Hitchock‘s “Vertigo” for en-semble in 6 groups, 18 pictures andelectronics. Foto from a perfor-mance played by Klangforum Wien,Centre Pompidou, Paris 2021; Photo:AROTIN & SERGHEI ContemporaryArt 2021.ReferencesAuslander, P. (2008). Liveness:Performance in a Mediatized Culture,Routledge.-ibid. (2013). “Sound and Vision: Theaudiovisual economy of musicalperformance”, in: Richardson, J. et al.(eds.). The Oxford Handbook of NewAudiovisual Aesthetics, Oxford Univ.Press: 605–621.Pauset, B. (2021), Vertigo/InfiniteScreen, Edition Gravis.Cavalletti, A. (2022). Vertigo: TheTemptation of Identity, FordhamUniversity Press.spaceChapple, F. & Kattenbelt, C. (2006).Intermediality in Theatre andPerformance, Rodopi: 11-25.Chattha, Umer Asghar a.o. (2020)“Motion Sickness in Virtual Reality:An Empirical Evaluation”, IEEE Access8: 130486–130499.Clarke, E. F. (2013). “Music, space andsubjectivity”, in: Born, G. (ed.). Music,Sound and Space. Transformations ofPublic and Private Experience,Cambridge Univ. Press: 91–110.Cook, N. (2001). Analysing MusicalMultimedia, Oxford University Press.Cox, A. (2016). Music and embodiedcognition: listening, moving, feeling,and thinking, Musical meaning andinterpretation, Indiana Univ. Press.Dan-Goor, E. and Samra, M. (2012).“Benign paroxysmal positionalvertigo after use of noise-cancelingheadphones”, American Journal ofOtolaryngology 33/3: 364–366.Gelly, C. (2021). “Music, Memory andRepression in Hitchcock’s Vertigo(1958)”, Miranda. Revue Pluridisci-plinaire Du Monde Anglophone 22,https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/36484 (last access Feb. 16,2022).12array2022Hasche, E. and Ingwer, P. (2016).Game of Colors: Moderne Bewegt-bildproduktion: Theorie und Praxis fürFilm, Video und Fernsehen, Springer.Hosokawa, S. (1984). “The WalkmanEffect”, Popular Music 4: 165–180.Kaltenecker, M. (2008). “Subtraktionund Inkarnation. Hören und Sehenin der Klangkunst und der musiqueconcréte instrumentale”, in: Musik alsWahrnehmungskunst. Untersuchun-gen zur Kompositionsmethodik undHörästhetik bei Helmut Lachenmann,Pfau: 101–126.Kittler, F. (1995). Aufschreibesysteme1800-1900, Fink.Stahnke, M. (2001). “InfiniteMeloharmonik: Vermutungen überden Wind”, in: Stahmer, K. (ed.). NeueMusik 2000, Königshausen & Neu-mann: 19-26.Schroedter, S. (2017). “Musik erlebenund verstehen durch Bewegung.Zur Körperlichkeit des Klanglichenin Choreografie und Performance”,in: Musik und Körper. InterdisziplinäreDialoge zum körperlichen Erleben undVerstehen von Musik, transcript:221–243.Utz, C. (2016). “Wahrnehmung”, in:Hiekel, J. P. and Utz, C. (eds.). Lexikonneue Musik, Metzler: 602–609.spaceWaldenfels, B. (2007). “Sichbewegen”, in: Brandstetter, G. andWulf, C. (eds.). Tanz alsAnthropologie, Fink: 14–30.13

Vertigo of the ears and eyes

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Vertigo of the ears and eyes

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Array, the journal of the International Computer Music Association