KWADRATUR #2 / TRANSFO

BL!NDMAN: Kwadratur #2/Transfo

In Kwadratur #2/Transfo Eric Sleichim and BL!NDMAN return to the formula of ‘20×20’, the concert with which BL!NDMAN in 2008 celebrated its 20th birthday and that has subsequently been renamed Kwadratur #1/Globus.
This formula attempts to find for new connections, contrasts and a different listening-experience. The concert is no longer a series of pieces, played neatly one after the other, but a chain in which some pieces sound only partly or in combination/overlap with other pieces. Different compositions (acoustic and electronic, for 1 to 16 musicians) intertwine into one large movement. Thus the concert as a whole is conceived as an encompassing experience.
The experimental, conceptual, multi-disciplinary, theatrical, the exploration of limits and the search for enriching creative encounters are all elements that make up the core business of BL!NDMAN, even when the original saxophone quartet has expanded to a collective of 4 quartets: saxophone, percussion, vocal and string quartet. Although each quartet has its own repertoire, the collective offers the possibility to create programs with combinations of several quartets. ‘20×20’ was the first production featuring the complete BL!NDMAN collective on stage. Kwadratur #2/Transfo is the second time the four quartets join forces, becoming an unusual group of almost orchestral dimensions.

Like Kwadratur #1/Globus, Kwadratur #2/Transfo has been conceived as a hybrid alternation of different contrasting and intertwining compositions. Strings, voices and saxophones share the stage with turntables and infrared sensors. Classical playing techniques are confronted with alternative techniques. 16 musicians face electronic technology. In that respect, Kwadratur #2/Transfo is a continually transforming concert (or better: performance) : known and unknown, acoustic and electronic, light and dark intertwine into a carefully composed discourse.

Kwadratur #2/Transfo focuses on a central conceptual theme: the idea of ‘transformation’. Three types of transformation are present throughout the performance as major themes. First there is the transformation of darkness into light, and by extension of emptiness into matter. This element is explicitly present in the visual aspect of the performance, also thanks to the light design of Remon Fromont. Secondly there is the transformation of musicianship. One of BL!NDMAN’s basic principles has always been to expand the possibilities of an instrument, to incorporate all types of performance (and especially the more unconventional ones) into its musical language: to remove musicians from their usual instruments, featuring alternative playing techniques and an outright theatrical use of the physical aspect. The third theme then is also the most important one: the way in which technology transforms human possibilities into new hybrid forms – on all levels: artistic as well as in daily life.

The most important idea in this matter is the complex relationship between humans and machines, the way in which technology expands, transforms human possibilities on one hand, but includes the danger of wiping out human dimensions on the other hand. Thus electronics and technology are present in this program in all different forms: electronic manipulation of sounds, samplers, electric guitars, infra red sensors or turntables.
For that reason, Eric Sleichim also makes reference to the best example of an artistic movement that considered technology as the ultimate symbol of modern times: Italian futurism. The new pieces by Sleichim and Brewaeys (especially written for this production) make extensive use of the text of the Futurist Manifest.

Maarten Beirens, December 2009

Press

‘Maybe it does sound complex, but in reality the collective succeeds to maintain an extremely transparent sound. With our without electronics, the performances are accessible. […] This concert was not a mind-game but an adventure, with threatening, fairylike, obsessive and poetic moments. […] a concert of high quality by an ensemble that temporarily has reached its peak.’ – Peter Vandeweerdt, Knack Blogt – 14 januari 2010