Xenakis Persepolis Los Angeles

Xenakis presented his Polytope de Persépolis in the ruins of the Temple of Darius in the Iranian desert on August 26, 1971. At sunset and for over one hour, Xenakis deployed an impressive artillery of both technical and human resources: 2 lasers, military searchlights, huge bonfires, 150 torch-bearing children. The audience in the temple ruins and was able to move freely between the six listening stations placed there. Each station had eight speakers, one for each track of Xenakis' electroacoustic composition Persépolis. It was a most impressive artistic and technological tour-de-force.

The evening opened with the 7-minute Diamorphoses (Xenakis's first electronic work, composed in the famous GRM studio in Paris) as a "geological prelude," followed by his 56-minute original electro-acoustic work Persépolis.

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) created five "polytopes" (from the Greek poly = several and topoi = places or spaces); Persepolis was the second. Of course, were Xenakis alive today and in Los Angeles, he would devise an entirely new, unique work. We thank the Xenakis Estate for their permission to present this performance of Perspolis LA as our tribute to his achievements . For Xenakis, each polytope was singular, linked to the history of its site, not to be reproduced.

Diamorphosis (1957) -- 7 minutes
Persepolis (1971) -- 56 minutes


Staying true to Xenakis' history as an architect and general math enthusiast, Embrace the Void Design designed, with the help of Thadeus Reed, a custom MAX/MSP patch that would generate DMX values based on various mathematical functions. This combined with some programming on a Congo lighting desk created the desired result: Mathematical Chaos.

One of the huge assets ETV brought to the table was a complete pre-visualization of the lighting design. This enabled the production team to program the lighting in a live virtual environment and see exactly how the instruments would respond. This allowed the team to sit down weeks before the gear had even arrived and tweak all aspects of the design under the direction of Daniel Teige.

DANIEL TEIGE (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR)

THADEUS FRAZIER-REED (PRODUCTION MANAGER)

SHARON KANACH (CREATIVE DIRECTOR)

EMBRACE THE VOID DESIGN (TECHNICAL DESIGN)

SUZANNE ISKEN (MOCA PROJECT COORDINATOR)

CAREY LOVELACE (CREATIVE CONSULTANT)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Xenakis
• Sound
• cage
• iannis
• experimental