The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

DAI lecturer John Heymans has been very busy recently organising Symposium on Sound, an event which took place this weekend at the Veenfabriek in Leiden. The idea of this was that it should be a varied programme of discussions, performances, and an exhibition, all centred on sound as an art form, or as a starting point for artistic investigation.

Since a particular area to be focussed on was the relationship between art and technology, something which interests me very much, I was very keen to attend. So it was that I found myself in Leiden this morning, my very first visit to the town; it’s a small place and home to an ancient university, so I suppose you could say it’s the Dutch equivalent of St. Andrews in Scotland.

As it happened, I was certainly not the only DAI (and ex-DAI) student to attend; not only that, but the event was actually very well attended indeed. It’s nice to see people interested in this type of experimental thing.

The first thing on the programme was a lecture/concert by David Behrman, who had visited us a few weeks ago at the DAI. He gave a very interesting lecture while stopping now and then to press some buttons on his laptop and pluck strings on a violin; this he did whilst being accompanied by Frances-Marie Uitti on the cello (apparently she’s the world’s most famous cellist or something, but I wouldn’t know).

After this, we were treated to a performance by the Siren Orchestra, a bunch of scruffy students dressed up in shirts and ties playing some reconstructed sound experiments from the 19th century. “Siren Orchestra” is actually a pretty descriptive name; imagine a hall full of half-broken police horns all playing at the same time. Some pieces worked better than others, I would say, but on the whole it was a very interesting performance.

When this was over, there followed the opening of the exhibition. Once again, sound was the theme, and once again, some things worked better than others. One very interesting piece was a performance by Jochem van Tol entitled Papier (“Paper”), which took the form of three musicians making sound using only paper: rolling it up, scrunching it, tearing it, and throwing it about in big piles into the air. Surprisingly melodious.

After this we were all pretty knackered and hungry, so quickly set out in search of something to eat. Unfortunately, there wasn’t so much time before the evening programme. We ended up in an Italian restaurant (on the basis that pasta can be cooked quickly), after which it was necessary to head straight back to the Veenfabriek.

The evening programme was the highlight of the weekend; an evening with Laurie Anderson, the famous American composer, performer, and artist. Unfortunately she didn’t actually play any music (doubtless unaffordable), but it was certainly interesting to hear her talk about her work and her opinions on music, art, and politics.

All in all, a very interesting day and well worth the trip.