Devised by Andy Ingamells with Jürgen Schmidt for Nam June Paik: I Expose the Music

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Following my 6-hour looped re-creation of Nam June Paik’s piano striptease Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia (Cork/London 2022) I conceived this new work taking inspiration from Paik’s unrealised ambition to use the Moon as a TV screen for the Earth. This performance was made in collaboration with the Astronomische Verein Dortmund and featured a scientific talk alongside a DJ performance using vinyl sourced from Dortmund’s astronomical enthusiast community. It invited the audience to look both outwards towards the heavens and inwards into Paik’s extraordinary imagination.

Jürgen Schmidt from the Astronomische Verein Dortmund was invited to give a talk about the possibility of projecting a film onto the Moon so that it can be viewed from Earth; as though the Moon is a cinema screen for the Earth. Schmidt had a handheld microphone and gave a talk while walking around the room. The audience were seated around him. At several points during his talk he invited audience members to look through a telescope that was positioned to focus on an image of the moon. Schmidt’s microphone was connected to a laptop running a piece of software that gives his voice a 3-second delay, making it challenging for him to speak. I performed as a director and amateur DJ (referencing Allan Kaprow’s role in Stockhausen’s Originale (1961)), playing Schmidt’s vinyl record collection on two turntables to create a soundtrack. During Schmidt’s talk the lighting in the space cycled through the colours red, green and blue.

This piece was developed as a continuation of Paik’s work Sinfonie for 20 Rooms (1961). Four international artists were invited to performatively refer to Paik’s work: Annika Kahrs (Germany), Autumn Knight (United States), Aki Onda (Japan) and Samson Young (Hong Kong) used Paik’s score as inspiration for site-specific works. Annika Kahrs performed a symphony in several parts together with the artists Andy Ingamells, Tintin Patrone and Louis d’Heudieres as well as musicians from Dortmund . The movements of the symphony were developed into performances during the weekends. The traces of each performance remained in the space for the duration of the project.

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Performance
23 July 2023, Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U, Dortmund, Germany