The Brilliant and the Dark interrogates proprietary rights that reside within archive material - remixing archive source through collective female voice. Using the viral logic of copyleft to negotiate the default conditions of the market, this collaborative project continues to generate unknown, unpredictable outcomes and potentials.
The project takes as a starting point a cantata for women’s voices, of the same name and first performed by 1,000 women volunteers at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969. Through negotiation with copyright owners, music publishers Josef Weinberger, artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White secured permissions for the elements of the original 1969 score to be used as a basis for a new work. An invitation to 22 piece women's choir Gaggle to participate in the new copyleft work that explored remix and reenactment through pre-recorded and live performance, resulted in the composition of a new work for women's voices – taking lyrics, melodic phrases and rhythms from the original and paralleling the operatic format. A live performance at ICA was recorded and pressed as a copyleft licensed vinyl – elements of which are used as source material for tonight's event.
This page was last modified on 5 May 2014, at 22:04.