Matthew Ritchie with Aranda\Lasch – The Morning Line
May 22–September 19, 2010 | Istanbul

Photo: GRIDUO
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Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary celebrates Istanbul’s art program in the framework of European Capital of Culture 2010 with the sonic pavilion The Morning Line by Matthew Ritchie and Aranda\Lasch. The Morning Line – an impressive 8 meter high and 20 meter long pavilion, built of 17 tons of black coated aluminum – explores the disciplinary interplays between art, architecture, music, mathematics, cosmology, and science. 

The Morning Line was conceived by Matthew Ritchie as an inherently collaborative structure, an interdisciplinary platform for information congruence, where artists, architects, engineers, physicists and musicians would each contribute their own specialized information to create a new form; a mutable structure, with multiple expressions and narratives intertwining in its physical structure, projected video and innovative spatialized sound environments. The structure can be broken down, shipped and installed to multiple locations, and is capable of being radically reconfigured for different venues and of adapting to a changing program of contemporary music. 

Ritchie's own decade long artistic project of constructing a personal cosmology that incorporates the languages of science, myth and religion into a single systemic or “semasiographic” visual language became a substrate for encoding these multiple narratives in a three dimensional structural system, in collaboration with Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch of Aranda\Lasch and Daniel Bosia of Arup AGU.

As one of its essential elements, Matthew Ritchie conceived the pavilion’s sonic identity. The Morning Line is saturated with fourty speakers, using a unique interactive ambisonic sound system, conceived by the Music Research Centre of York University. The scope of the structure itself and its novel spatialization software suggests a new form of music – music written for this new kind of instrument.

For the presentation in Istanbul guest sound curator Russell Haswell has invited Jana Winderen, Peter Zinovieff, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and Yasunao Tone to conceive new sonic works, commissioned by T-B A21. Two other new works by Ghostigital and  Jónsi & Alex are also being presented for the first time. 

As The Morning Line continues to travel the world as a platform for contemporary music, and within its mandate to encourage and support the production of innovative composition wherever it tours, T-B A21 has entered a partnership with ITU - MIAM, Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul, under the guidance of Melih Fereli, former director of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), Kamran İnce, and Cihat Aşkın and has commissioned new compositions by Batuhan Bozkurt, Erdem Helvacıoğlu, Cevdet Erek and Mehmet Can Özer.

These ten new compositions are presented as world premieres in Istanbul, during the festival that will follow the opening ceremonies on the 22nd of May and runs for the following three day. They have been added to the existing archive of music and soundscapes selected by the previous guest curators Florian Hecker and Bryce Dessner which is replayed in The Morning Line throughout the exhibition period over the following months. These include collaborative works by Bryce Dessner, David Sheppard with Evan Ziporyn, Mark Fell with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, and solo compositions by Bruce Gilbert, Florian Hecker, Lee Ranaldo, Chris Watson, and Thom Willems.
Location
Eminönü Square Istanbul
duration
May 22–September 19, 2010
Symposium,May 23
The Promiscuity of Collaboration
New creative process in technology-enabled environments
With Ben Aranda, Batuhan Bozkurt, Cevdet Erek, Ghostigital, Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, Russell Haswell, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Tony Myatt, Mehmet Can Özer, Lee Ranaldo, Matthew Ritchie, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Peter Zinovieff, Daniela Zyman.

 
May 23–25
The Morning Line
Contemporary Music Sonic Festival

every evening 7:00 pm-10:00 pm