Hyo Lee

Mad Rush

2014

Hyo Lee

Mad Rush

2014

supervised by Univ.-Prof. Gabriele Rothemann

Hyo Lee, 0674111, University of Applied Arts Vienna,Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art, Class Photography, Univ.-Prof. Gabriele Rothemann

SS 2014

On...

100 Days of Mad Rush - 04Mad Rush & Philip Glass - 06

Bottom of Fascination - 09Illogical Love - 12

Physicalizing Love - 13Idolatry - 16

Artist vs. Pianist - 17Video Art - 18

The Answer - 19

1

“He knew that even the memory of the piano falsified still further the perspective in which he saw the elements of music, that the field open to the musician is not a miserable keyboard of seven notes, but an immeasurable keyboard still almost entirely unknown on which, here and there only, separated by shadows thick and unexplored, a few of the millions of keys of tenderness, of passion, of courage, of serenity, which compose it, each as differing from the others as one universe from another universe, have been found by a few great artists who do us the service, by awakening in us something corresponding to the theme they have discovered, of showing us what richness, what variety, is hidden unbeknownst to us within that great unpenetrated and disheartening darkness of our soul which we take for emptiness and nothingness.”

(p. 351)

2

“And so when the pianist had finished, Swann went up to him to express a gratitude whose warmth was very pleasing to Mme Verdine. - He is a charmer, isn’t he? she said to Swann. You might say he knows a thing of two about that sonata, the little devil. You didn‘t know the piano could achieve such things. It‘s everything - except a piano! My word! I’m startled by it every time; I think I’m hearing an orchestra. Though it’s even more beautiful than an orchestra, more complete.”

(p. 215)

In Search of Lost Time Vol. I The Way by Swann’sPart II A Love of Swann’s

Marcel Proust

3

100 Days of Mad Rush is a chronicle of my life from the 1st of March to the 8th of June in 2014, and my attempt to learn how to play the piano piece Mad Rush by Philip Glass. Mad Rush would normally not be considered an appropriate piece for a beginner like me, as I couldn't play piano at all before. It is very beautiful. I have been thoroughly fascinated by this 13'48'' of mad rush since a long time.

It's a project I chose for the capstone project of my studies at an art university. There’s something of the absurd in the concept of earning a diploma in Fine Art – what will be examined? What do I have to prove? It seems to be all rather ungraspable. I chose to give myself 100 days, the better part of an academic semester, for me to reflect on all my years of study and come up with the idea which would carry the weight of representing not only the as-yet impenetrable density of my self as the unripe adolescent artist but also the fresh breeze that hints at anticipated blossom. And when the day comes, which is 17th of June, I will play this piece for you , and you can taste for yourself the fruit of my labor.

Along the way, I wanted to use this constructed window of time in my life to answer some of the rather haunting questions that were present during my study: How can we get to the roots of fascination? What happens when our fascination creeps over the bounds of reason? What are the origins of idolatry? How are we penetrated by music?

By the time this essay reaches your hands, I will be still madly rushing to my 100th day. As of today, the 29th of May, I have practiced piano for 77 days, for about 111 hours so far.

(On the right, you can see the list which is hanging on the wall in the picture above. I write down the date & time on this list when I go practicing.)

4

Still from 100 Days of Mad Rush, 2014

5

On Mad Rush & Philip Glass

Mad Rush was written by American composer Philip Glass in 1979, and was first performed by the composer himself on a pipe organ at the Dalai Lama’s first public address in North America. (Since then, it has been more commonly performed on the piano, and getting my hands on a pipe organ for 100 days seemed a bit out of reach). Philip Glass started off writing for his own ensemble and went on to write operas, dances and film scores. He is known mostly for his minimalistic style. In his many interviews, he says that he prefers his music to be described as ‘music with repetitive structures’.

My first encounter with his music was Einstein on the Beach, an opera written by Philip Glass and directed by Robert Wilson which premiered at the Avignon Festival in France in 1976, I found it rather stressful and a bit annoying, but oddly attractive nevertheless. It did a strange thing to my brain and I liked it – it ended up becoming my favorite soundtrack while painting. I found it weirdly soothing, and it helped me to focus. I purchased my first Philip Glass album, Solo Piano (1989), in 2012, and have been listening to it endlessly ever since. Particularly track number 6, Mad Rush, which became my great love and the centerpiece for this project. I have listened to it, without exaggeration, nearly every day while doing all different sorts of activities. Actually, I am fairly certain that I have listened to every single piece of Philip Glass music you could possibly find on the internet. And when I looked him up on Google, when I saw his friendly-next-door-neighbor-innocent-civilian type of face, my affection for him grew even stronger. But enough of ‘I am the biggest Philip Glass fan.’ speech for now.

I love this song so very much. I could go on for days listening to it. In fact, right now, I am listening to it. I love it so much that I could dedicate hundreds of adjectives to it:

repetitive primitive, naive, pure dessonant, neurotic, manic urgent, rushing, penentrating aching, yearning, longing

But do these words describe the music itself, or am I really describing what happens to me when I hear it? Music is such an abstract form of art, and so, too, your taste in certain music. But does it become less abstract when you can describe it in a defined language? Of course, if you argue that you don’t need a reason for liking something, you are absolutely right, but I can’t help but ask myself why it touches me so much more deeply than other beautifully written pieces of piano music.

As an artist, when I’m inspired by something, which has then developed into an idea for an artwork, it always takes some time – often more time than I like – until it’s realized in some medium of art. I start to play with the idea to transform it into a concept by questioning it, reflecting on it, and reasoning about it. This process can be rather exhausting sometimes because it feels like it’s on the tip of my tongue and just stubbornly refuses to come out. When the idea is not fully ripe, the result can be also premature and not fully formed, but if I wait too long, it gets rotten and I can’t do anything with it anymore because it’s already tainted with doubts, insecurities, and plain laziness. I think if I could translate this process into a piece of music, it would sound just like Mad Rush. It’s rushing me and saying “Come out, come out and turn into something beautiful!”

6

FASCINATIONfas·ci·na·tion° \¦fa-sә-¦nā-shәn\noun

1 a : the quality or power of fascinating b : something fascinating fascinating : extremely interesting or charming

2 : the state of feeling an intense interest in something

7

“Swann had always this peculiar fascination for liking to rediscover in the paintings of the masters not only the general characteristics of the real world that surrounds us, but what seems on the contrary the least susceptible to generalization, the individual features of the faces we know: for instance, in the material of a bust of the Doge Loredano by Antonio Rizzo, the jut of the cheekbones, the slant of the eyebrows, altogether the very evident resemblance to his coachman Remi; under the colours of a Ghirlandaio, M. de Palancy‘s nose; in portrait by Tintoretto, the invasion of the cheek‘s fat by the implantation of the first hairs of the sidewhiskers, the break in the nose, the penetration of the gaze, the congest ion of the eyelids of Doctor du Boulbon. Perhaps because he had always continued to feel a touch of remorse that he had limited his life to worldly relationships, to conversation, he believed he could find a sort of indulgent pardon granted him by the great artists, in the fact that they too had complated with pleasure, introduced into their work, faces like these, which give it a singular certificate of reality and of truth to life, a modern flavour; perhaps, also, he had allowed himself to be so caught up in the frivolity of the society people that he felt the need to look into an old work of art for these anticipated and rejuvenating allusions to current proper names.”

In Search of Lost Time Vol. I The Way by Swann’sPart II A Love of Swann’s (p. 225)

Marcel Proust

8

On Bottom of Fascination

I (and probably many other artists) have a tendency to fall deeply into something – anything – which inspires me intensely. I would choose to go deeper and deeper into the subject to get to the bottom of it, sometimes through an effective path or sometimes rather not. In 2013, I was so very bored - like really, r e a l l y bored – and during those long days, the boredom was so overwhelming and overpowering that I had to do something with it because it was the only thing which was captivating me. Nothing else was there to lead me to sit in front of a canvas or hold a camera. So, I started to read books about boredom. They were all very boring. But my favorite from that time was Heidegger’s analysis of boredom from his lectures on metaphysics. I ended up making an hour long, very boring video about boredom which is called ‘Eternal Boredom’. In the process, my boredom essentially disappeared, and I felt like when it comes to boredom, I have been there, done that.

For me as an artist, fascination and inspiration go hand in hand. Many of my previous works started off right there on the surface of fascination/inspiration and also ended just there. But I wanted more than just touching the surface, so I started to stir it with the following questions: Where do I go from here? Is it enough, if my work is just nothing but praise for my own fascination, what could other people possibly get from it?

And last but not least: How can you get to the bottom of fascination? Is there even such a thing? If there is, can you ever reach it? Or am I chasing something that doesn’t even exist and can’t be reached? If you can’t explain your own fascination, why is it so fascinating and where it’s coming from, would you rather take distance to analyze it objectively or would you dive right into it and try to lose yourself in it?

When I came to terms with the fact that my fascination with Mad Rush is beyond casual and innocent adoration, I started to ask myself all those questions. I didn’t get very far just listening to it and thinking about it, so I decided to learn how to play it. At that time, it felt like a great idea and such an obvious step to take. In an interview with Philip Glass in The Independent1, he answers the question of what motivated him to start writing music, “Because I thought that would be the way of finding out where the music is coming from, that seemed like a good idea.”. When I read those words, I thought to myself, “Oh , Mr. Glass, I so totally get you.”. That’s the thing with fascination, it often feels so obvious because it’s so intense. It all happens so quickly, leaving no time for proper reflection. Of course reflection can come afterwards if you choose it, but the very moment of fascination is often nothing but fascination itself and being stuck there with it.

1 Philip Glass: ‘I think I’m built for this kind of life. I train like an athlete.’ By Christina Patterson, The Independent, 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/interviews/philip-glass-i-think-im-built-for-this-kind-of-life-i-train-like-an-athlete-1688870.html

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Stills from 100 Days of Mad Rush, 2014

“Or she would look at him with a sullen expression, once again he would see before him a face worthy of figuring in Botticelli’s Life of Moses, he would place her in it, he would give her neck the necessary inclination; and when he had well and truly painted her in distemper, in the fifteenth century, on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, the idea that she had nevertheless remained here, by the piano, in the present moment, ready to be kissed and possessed, the idea of her materiality and her life would intoxicate him with such force that, his eyes distracted, his jaw tensed as though to devour her, he would swoop down upon that Botticelli virgin and begin pinching her cheeks.”

(p. 241)

“I do find it absurd that a man of his intelligence should suffer over a person of that sort, who is not even interesting - because they say she is an idiot, she added with the wisdom of people not in love who believe a man of sense should be unhappy only over a person who is worth it; which rather like being surprised that anyone should condescend to suffer from cholera because of so small a creature as the comma bacillus.”

(p. 345)

In Search of Lost Time Vol. I The Way by Swann’sPart II A Love of Swann’s

Marcel Proust

11

On Illogical Love

Who is not recommended Proust or does not risk a voluntary attempt to read his books once in their lives? I was quite frustrated by his book at first, but as soon as I admitted to myself that I am not going to understand its complexity fully anyway and Proust is too smart and twisted for his own good, reading it became easier – even quite relaxing sometimes – and there was room growing for my own personal interpretations. I don’t want to upset any passionate academic Proust fans, but it’s just my own experience with it, which simply comes from having had the luxury of being able to afford a copy at a bookstore.

The Sonate de Vinteuil is an imaginary violin and piano sonata by fictitious composer Vinteuil, which becomes a significant motif in the relationship between Swann and Odette in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time Vol. I: The Way by Swann's. Swann's associated memories and emotions for the Sonate de Vinteuil become so deep and rich that it begins to take on a life of its own. Actually, much of the book seems to focus on Proust’s reminiscence on piano and piano music. The relationship evolves in complexity and involves different events and characters. Their love ends at a certain point and Swann wonders why he was so in love with a woman who is not even his type in the first place. Swann comes to the realization that it might be Odette's resemblance to Jethro's daughter in the Botticelli painting Zipporrah, which he loves very much. (Putting this very complex and rather undefined love story into five sentences, it sounds like nonsense, but how can I possibly sum up two hundred pages of relationship, especially when Proust sometimes dedicates a sentence that continues for 5-6 pages only for pondering over Odette’s nose?)

It's like Swann paints his as-yet-unknown lover on a canvas. And before he has even started, there is a a face already painted on it. He just has to go out there and find a person who looks just like that face. I know that it will sound extreme if I put it like this. But this wall of projection he built himself in the process of falling in love for his fantasies and idealnesses. (Poor Swann with his bittersweet realization!)

The concept of love, just like fascination, is complex. Often it’s the space where opposites can coexist. It can feel at once very clear, and the next minute everything feels unsure – illogical and even random. The mystery of not knowing the person, or understanding that person’s completely different way of thinking provides fertile soil for your growing imagination, projection, and eventually love. But at the same time, you want to know more and more about that person. During this process of ‘getting to know you’, either your puzzle is completed or your fantasy crashes. It’s hard to think clearly when you are trapped in the middle of storming love, just like fascination. You revel in the moment when you feel like your beloved really understands you and you, too, understand them – and now you are really, truly together, each being totally possessed by the other. But enough of this cheesy ‘love talk’ for now and going back to Mad Rush and me.

What is the difference between ‘I love this song!’ and ‘I love her!’? Does love always trigger your desire to know more about your love? This possessive aspect of love between human beings, does it also apply when it comes to loving a thing?

12

On Physicalizing Love

It seems to be quite a universal fact that there is a need for a physical interaction when it comes to love, all different sorts – not only the love between human beings, but also with animals, things, ideas, and so on. If makes sense when you think about it, since we are in this physical, functioning thing, which is called ‘body’.

What happens, and how does it happen, when you have a need to express your love on a physical level for a non-human thing, like a piece of music? I could listen to it, sing to it, dance to it, cry to it, engage in a physical activity with other human being to it. But, none of that fulfills this one essential desire, which goes hand in hand with this need of physicalizing your love: possession.

What does it mean to possess/own a piece of music? If you are thinking about this now, I will spare you an embarrassment: a copy of CD is not music itself, life isn’t that simple.

I feel a sense of possessing/owning my works, because they are a representative of my ideas, executed by me, using my time and energy. I know more about it than others, I am responsible for it, and I have to own up to it. Using this logic, Philip Glass possesses/owns Mad Rush, quite obviously. But what do I have to do if I also want to own it? I can't just turn back time, become a musical genius beat him to writing Mad Rush. So, what would be for me the closest to possessing/owning it?

I own a basketball jersey saying ‘Eat, Drink and Sleep It’. I am a lousy basketball player: short, slow, and shy. But it gives me some sense of pride when I wear this jersey, because it feels like my silly little hobby becomes a part of something bigger than how I spend 3 hours of my summer afternoons. I wanted that with Mad Rush. I wanted it to be 24 hours of my life – not something that stops playing when I fall asleep, but to connect with it even during my deep slumber, to train the newly adapted muscles growing in my fingers from the 2 hours of practice right before bedtime. It is literally a physical phenomenon. I hurt if I practice too long and it has been the kind of pain I always welcomed. My metamorphosis!

I have had my moments while learning how to play piano. First I was simply content to experience the joy of learning a new thing and having complete focus while practicing. It felt quite romantic to incorporate this new passion into my life, adapting to this certain type of discipline. It felt more than great the moment I noticed that I don’t have to look at the piano sheet anymore because it’s all in my head and I can just close my eyes while playing. It was rather a shock when I could play the whole song from the beginning till the very end for the first time. It’s a new way to appreciate this delicate piece of music, from a perspective of its structure. It felt often like an exclusive relationship between Mad Rush and me because Mad Rush is the only piece of existing music I can play on the piano, nothing else. Now I can not only play it in my head, but also see it. Seeing music, I wouldn’t even try to explain that abstract idea. But come on, Mad Rush is coming out of my fingers!

13

Still from Experiment: seeing Mad Rush, 2014

IDOLATRYidol·a·try° \-trē\noun

1 : the worship of a physical object as a god2 : immoderate attachment or devotion to something

14

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Stills from There #face, There #hands, There #kissin, 2014

On Idolatry

°1

Idol : a greatly loved or admired person: a picture or object that is worshipped as a godIdolizing : to worship as a god; broadly : to love or admire to excess: to practice idolatryIdolatry : the worship of a physical object as a god: immoderate attachment or devotion to somethingIdolater : a worshiper of idols: a person that admires intensely and often blindly one that is not usually a subject of worship

So, pianists have now become my idols, composers my gods. I am idolizing them. I am an idolater.

Idolatry has some quite negative connotations. It is a sinful idea in some cultures for religious reasons. You must worship God, but never worship the statue of God. It goes beyond the symbolic usage of objects. But despite its negative meaning, it would be the word which I feel best describes my attitude towards pianists and classical music. I have never been so very impressed by some famous painter, but I would bow till my nose hit the floor to some pianists and I would wash Mozart’s feet with my hair if I could. Why is it like that?

I was for a while satisfied with only listening, but then I needed to go to the concerts and look up the performance videos on YouTube because in my non-musician-brain, I couldn’t grasp the concept that somebody, just any other human being, can write such music and play such music. There are certain patterns when it comes to piano performance videos. The camera angle moves between full shot of the stage, audience, and close-up of pianist’s hands or faces. My absolute favorite is the close-ups of their faces. There is always this moment when they reach the climax of the piece, often looking up or having so much agony on their faces. They look up to nowhere – there is nothing there – but they look like they see something. If I completely ignore the theatrical aspect of concert performance and let myself ponder on my most romanticized imagination, it would go something like this: the heaven of music is opening its door and they are slowing leaving the stage and moving into some sort of trance state where they can see the face of Music God. And I naively wish that if I look at them as passionately as they look when they perform, they would take me there, too.

But all those moments of fascination I have collected and archived in my head, whether it's how a pianist flickers his eyes or how peculiar his index finger looks when it hits the middle C, are all just a split second. I want those moments to last longer. For the video-collages, it was all about obsessive overloads. I abused rather basic editing skills like slowing down, repeating, and over-lapping – types of techniques which are considered these days to be ‘too basic’ or even ‘cheap’. For example, slowing down literally expands the physical time for your brain to process what you are seeing better, allowing you to take more in.

I didn’t arrive at this point all at once, it grew in stages. I adored them first, quickly started to admire their genius and disciplined life style. I felt some sense of shared experience also as an artist. Then I started to feel jealous simply because I was not able to do what they do. I satisfied my need to be a refined person, complimenting my own taste in liking this music. But sometimes, I felt small and insecure because I felt like my naive adoration without academic knowledge is rather rude in the face of something so great like that. I want to dedicate all my works to them but at the same time I want to steal everything, and I wished intensely that it was me, not Philip Glass who had written Mad Rush. Soon, repetitive behavior (listening, watching) developed, but it was initially nothing to worry about. Finally, it reached a point that my therapist would probably call ‘a bit unhealthy’.

1 Merriam-Webster English-English Dictionary

http://www.merriam-webster.com

16

On Artist vs. Pianist

I am not one of those “I used to play piano as a kid, I really regret giving it up’’ people. I actually always wanted to be a basketball player when I was a kid. I remember being practically forced to go to piano lessons by my mom, but it didn’t take too long to convince her that it’s just not my thing. Same goes with classical music as well. Now I am practicing piano every day, listening to Bach while cleaning, and saving money for a decent seat in concert halls.

I often have a very specific visualization of the result, already, when I am merely formulating an idea for an artwork. And often, physically working on it doesn’t even feel so much like the act of creating, but more like chasing this image through my head, like a sketch which has become sentient and claim too much self-importance. Sometimes I get there quite quickly, sometimes I discover that it’s just not going to happen for some technical reason. But most times, it feels like it’s just at my fingertips if I can stretch them just a tiny bit further. It can be such a very frustrating process! I wonder where pianists set their goal: Is it the first Beethoven Sonatas CD by Kempff they ever listened to? Do they aim to outplay their mentors? Is it simply about playing better than yesterday?

When I am inspired, I can’t jump right on to it. I must first evaluate its worth as a topic for an artwork because I don’t have all the time in the world or so much space for all those failed, lame tryouts. I wonder whether pianists also have to question whether their choice of playing Chopin is worth it or not. Maybe if they’re daring to interpret it in a totally radical way, it could be a question. But when it comes to working on a piece written by a crazy genius 300 years ago, which is beloved all over the world and has been for so long? How comforting it sounds! If people would ask me “What are the topics in that video of yours?’’, I have to try to make it sound as smart and self-assured as possible, so their eyes can glaze over and they can give me a lukewarm, “Cool…’’ and leave. But if I were a pianist! When they would ask me “What are you doing on the piano these days?’’ and I answer, “Rachmaninov.’’ that would be the end of discussion.

I imagine I am editing a video, sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours, my eyes are sore and I am hungry, this video editing program has random errors, and as long as I am not a computer expert, I will never have full control of it. And there goes a pianist going to his piano, which is itself, just pure beauty in how it looks and what it does, and he starts to practice Saint-Saëns.

Of course it’s not like this at all and I know it. It’s actually just a bunch of ignorant assumptions that make it sound like what they do is easier than as it really is. The young British pianist James Rhodes describes his life as a concert pianist in his contribution for The Guardian1: “My life involves endless hours of repetitive and frustrating practising, lonely hotel rooms, dodgy pianos, aggressively bitchy reviews, isolation, confusing airline reward programmes, physiotherapy, stretches of nervous boredom (counting ceiling tiles backstage as the house slowly fills up) punctuated by short moments of extreme pressure (playing 120,000 notes from memory in the right order with the right fingers, the right sound, the right pedalling […] and perhaps most crushingly, the realisation that I will never, ever give the perfect recital. It can only ever, with luck, hard work and a hefty dose of self-forgiveness, be ‘good enough’.’’.

I want to paint like Gould plays Bach. When he plays Bach, I don't only hear his magnificent talent but also see Bach's geniusness all over his face, he becomes as beautiful as Bach's Goldberg Variations. I project all the great things in the parallel universe of composers and classical music on his face and this face becomes the representation of an ideal artist I can't seem to find in my universe.

There are always those stupid stereotypes: a talented musician with a tortured soul, a crazy artist with some addiction problems. Fame and success won’t come to everybody. You can romanticize being a poor unknown artist all you want. I imagine, as much as it’s not fun for me to be one, the same goes for the young unknown pianists. Philip Glass was driving a taxi into his 40s because he didn’t make money with his music. In fact, people called his music ‘a torture’ in the beginning of his career. I guess I should just suck it up and work harder in my atelier with bad lights, and no beautiful piano to go to. (Assuming the condition, of course, that I do have actually what it takes to be a successful artist.)

1 James Rhodes: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you.’, The Guardian, 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/apr/26/james-rhodes-blog-find-what-you-love

17

On Video Art

While documenting my 100 days, I truly grew to appreciate the beauty of daylight. I filmed most often during the day. Sometimes I started to film only because the light was so beautiful. It was a bit frustrating when it rained one whole week so I couldn’t get decent footage, but I am moody in those rainy days anyway. That’s exactly what I like about filming with the daylight. The light is not only the source to illuminate things, but it becomes a transmitter of what’s happening emotionally in that moment, it affects your mood as an object in front of the camera. It also brings your viewers further in and lends a sense of realism to the film.

A sense of realism is not always easy to achieve – it’s often harder than you think because we have been so spoiled already by the new technology which makes everything possible. Is my growing hair reassuring you that what you are watching is showing how it really happened? And those scenes with dialogue, who am I talking to? A person in the same room who is not in front of the camera? A person on the phone? Am I talking to the camera, or to myself? How “normal’’ would I act and how “real’’ could the ongoing emotions be when the camera is rolling? But most times, it was easier than I anticipated because as soon as I start to practice after setting up the camera, focusing on practicing saved me from my concerns about looking good, being entertaining, or whatever you feel pressured to do in front of the lens.

I worked with video as a medium in the majoriy of my study. I like Video Art. I like its openness, its narrative quality. I like that it's a relatively new medium of art. I find it interesting how Performance Art played its role in the developement of Video Art. I am inspired by the artists who use Video Art in an unconventional way. And It's absolutely brilliant if an artist succeed to combine all those great things of Video Art in one work. For example, I adore 'No Sex Last Night aka Double Blind' (1992) from Sophie Calle and Greg Shephard. Not only because it's bringing up many interesting topics such as the thin lines between subject and object, public and private and fiction and reality, but also because of all the very genuine and raw emotions that came out of this absurd setting they put themselves in. For me, It felt somehow like a gamble to perform this kind of a self-experiment in front of a camera and naively hope to deliver the emotions that are authentic and intense enough to touch the viewers in some way. During my 100 days, I had to carry on with the risk of my film ending up being just about how I fail. I was in such a staged setting of life, but the vunerability and a sense of being exposed I felt were so real.

I thought a lot about the length of 100 days, which led me to consider also the topic of ‘A manipulated reality’. How much control do I allow myself when it comes to the story? Of course I couldn’t fake my piano playing skills, but maybe I should add other things just to make it more entertaining to watch. This fear as an artist of boring the viewer after 5 minutes comes despite the knowledge that most viewers seem to have a maximum 2 minutes of attention span in exhibition space anyway. In the end, I decided to take the risk and go with not telling the whole story to those impatient viewers rather than forcing a drama and intensity, which can happen very easily during the process of shortening. Because my experience was nothing like fireworks and explosion of feelings. It was how a piano came into my life, slowly seeping in and spreading, and one day it hit me all of sudden: not only can I no longer point my finger at all those moments of realization but now at this point, I can’t even remember what it was like to not have a piano in my room.

If my film fascinates you, you will have plenty of time to get to the bottom of your fascination.

18

On The Answer

About a month ago, in my piano lessons, I learned the ending of Mad Rush, which meant that I could play from the beginning till the very end. I didn’t put so much meaning on being able to play the whole piece, just a quiet high five with my piano teacher. But I remember having to cry every time I played this ending part, for few days after that lesson. That was a very strange experience. It’s probably a combination of everything: the insane beauty of that ending, relief, “diploma stress’’, a sense of achievement and a lot more things I couldn’t formulate into a language yet.

Incidentally, I still don't know how to read sheet music. My piano teacher tried her best but I just don't get it. I still know only where middle C stands on the keyboard and where it is on the staff. So when I play a certain key for the first time, I have to spend time caressing it and counting how far it is from middle C. Regardless of how much pride I have found in my diploma project, I couldn't help but wonder whether there was something more than 'seeking answers' in my decision to learn how to play Mad Rush. On my productive days, it felt so promising – as if there those answers were just over the ridge of the next hill, and I only had to push a little bit further. On my bad days, it felt like I made this decision only because I fear that there will be nothing left afterwards. I will be empty. (But, at least I learned how to play the piano, which is a totally worthy thing to do.) It's nothing but a great relief to me that you will hear only the absolute truth in my playing on the 17th of June, because I can't fake how good I am when it comes to playing piano, and I have nothing to hide when it comes to how much I love Mad Rush.

Did I find the answers to my questions? Did you perhaps find them from reading between all these lines? You seem to be less lost than me. If not, I am sorry that I haven’t found us the answers yet. But I feel like I am getting closer, or maybe that’s just my wishful thinking.

I am planning on 6-7 hours of practice every day from the 1st of June. By then, this essay will already be handed in, and (I dearly hope!) all the technical issues regarding this exhibition will be resolved. I will take a break from my exhausting student jobs. Then maybe I will have the moment of epiphany. Even if I don’t, after 100 days, I know that it’s not the end of the world. I am sure that there will be many more fascinating things to dive into in my future.

Till then...

“The time we have to spend each day is elastic: it is stretched by the passions we feel; it is schrunk by those we inspire; and all of it is filled by habit”

In Search of Lost Time Vol. II In the Shadow of Young Girls in FlowerPart I At Mme Swann's (p. 188)

Marcel Proust

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