With this app downloaded on your phone you get to experience an immersive artwork inside your home.
The work: Symphony of a Missing Room, was first exhibited in 2009 at the National Museum (produced by Weld) reflecting the museum as a phenomenon and architecture.
Like a ‘waste-mould-cast’ it activate a symbiotic state between the art works perceptual triggers, its museum visitors and the prevailing environment. Leaving only experience and memories behind.
For over 10 years, the work continued to be shown internationally, opening up new formats and collaborations in the museum environment. Through the years the work started reflecting back on itself, even catching a glimpse of itself; Symphony had become a work of art collecting museums.
By incorporating its environments as part of its body Symphony gradually made itself independent of the institutions where it was conceived.
During these extraordinary times when many cultural institutions are closed and public places are empty, a version was made so that two people can perform / experience Symphony together inside a domestic setting. It is a digital artwork that turns mobile screens into projector lights. By alternating between receiving and guiding roles, throughout the experience you will be asked to closing your eyes and follow a score of choreographed suggestions. In tandem with a three-dimensional sound in headphones the process augments a virtual room, shared only between the two of you.
Or perhaps only partly shared...The experience is reminiscent of how individuals form different generations live side by side interacting with each other but somewhat fail to coincide and share each others realities. Inside the missing room, visitors pass through walls, into tunnels that travel through a network of past exhibitions and museums. Other artists, dead and alive, far and near, echo into the symphony as an endless conversation. In the process of creating this potential room of reciprocity between two people the work serves as a companion providing a score for interpersonal sensibilities that risk going extinct or be forgotten if not practiced or cared for.
Symphony, 2020 is a composite experience of Symphonys previous incarnations from some twenty international museums and biennials such as; Martin-Gropius-Bau / Berlin Festspiele, Royal Academy of Arts, Momentum 8 - Tunnel Vision, Center Pompidou, MMK2 Frankfurt, S.M.A.K, Museum M, Bern Biennale and the 2nd Kochi Muziris Biennale.
It reflects a variety of works such as One Million Years, 1969 - by On Kawara; No More Reality, 1991 - by Phillipe Parreno; Plaster Surrogates, 1982 - by Alan Mcollum, and a photograph by Paul Almasy: Louvre, Paris, 1942.
Thanks and credits to:
Nandi Nobel, Designer of the App’s symbols.
Emma Ward (Production)
Rachel Alexander and Sara Lindström (Dramaturgy
and choreography ) Genevieve Maxwell, Lisette Drangert, Laura Hemming Love, Catherine Hoffman, Pia Nordin, Moa Hansen, Colin McLean, Lisen Ellard, Lena Kimming (Performers in the Symphony Series since 2009) Voices: Alba Lundahl Seitl & Saskia Vasovic Stefansdotter
Lundahl & Seitl
Developed by DVA - Creative Technology Studio
Symphony, 2020, is designed to be experienced in a domestic setting, with your existing household, during these extraordinary times. We shall not be liable for any damage (including, without limitation, for personal injury or illness) arising as a result of using this app. Please adhere to your own national/local guidelines on interpersonal contact when participating in this artwork.