henning lundkvist - works - a history of accumulation-ascending formations of musical harmonies from the tulip mania to the great depression

a history of accumulation - ascending formations of musical harmonies from the tulip mania to the great depression

en ackumulationens historia - stigande formationer av musikaliska harmonier från tulpankrisen till den stora depressionen
(2007- 2008)

sound file, 58 minutes
mp3 (57:32 minutes, 79mb)

"in the last decades we have seen a development of a history of seeing, a history looking several centuries back, tracing the origins of the hegemony of the bourgeoisie through a materialistic observation of art. a history of hearing, on the other hand (if there at all is such a history to talk about), doesn’t look further back in time than to john cage’s experience in an anechoic chamber (i.e. a completely sound proof and “silent” chamber), in which he noticed that silence was not silent at all - to his surprise, cage heard the sounds of his neural system and blood circulation. thus; while a history of seeing tries to study the economical, social and technological conditions for the producion of ways of seeing in different epochs, and while it is studying the social conditions for presentation, representation and reprocduction of ideology by those means, a history of hearing is hardly exerting itself more than throwing a negligent glance over the shoulder, looking merely some 60 years back in time, finding nothing more before its eyes than the revelation of The Great Composer in a totally confined space.

'a history of accumulation...' is a modest attempt to connote the history of classical music with its founding economical conditions, an attempt to do this through the simple method of superimposing the 'harmonies' of 'musical masterpieces' in order to intimate them with the conflictual social realities and economical chaos under which they were produced. 'a history of accumulation...' was composed in late 2007 and early 2008, with a CD-box with “the top 100 masterpieces of classical music” as raw material, its tracks put on top of eachother in chronological order from the mid 1600s to 1928; the masterpieces of the golden age of classical music - the music after the first capitalistic crash, and before the second."

"a history..." is included in the "art is not mute" sound art archive, initiated by ersta konsthall.

also published on CDr on inaktiverlag, more info here.