49. An Architecture of Alchemy: A Cinematic Painting

David J. Lieberman

A large, white, crumpled fabric lies against a dark, almost black background. The translucent material is spread out unevenly, creating various folds and shadows, with thin blue threads subtly extending from the bottom corners.

Fig. 49.1 Drawing from “traces at the edge.” Image by the author (2021).1

Architecture is dancing …

As architect, artist, poet, and filmmaker, I identify as an alchemist in asserting that architecture constructs mechanisms by which to transform experience in considering the body as an empathic instrument to apprehend and to understand space. Traditional spatial composition has relied on the surfaces of resistance and reflection; space can be understood as the dissolve, and in the blur of the visual and the aural at the limits of perception and in its tactility. The work of Iannis Xenakis has been the subject of ongoing research and has been an influence on practice for over five decades. Rather than contributing a scholarly presentation in the Japan leg of the Meta-Xenakis Symposium, I proposed a cinematic painting as a personal tribute to Xenakis: An Architecture of Alchemy, integrating video excerpts from “the SPACE between the NOTES” performance in 2022, itself based on a series of my sculptural drawings “traces at the edge” from the previous year, with my voice over reciting personal texts.

An Architecture of Alchemy

A person, partially covered by a sheet, lying on a mattress with their legs and one arm exposed. The setting appears dimly lit and informal. The person’s face is partially obscured by their arm and hair.

Fig. 49.2 Still image from performance of “the SPACE between the NOTES,” Vienna, 13 June 2022.

Anatomiesaal Schillerplatz, Vienna, 13 June 2022

Dancers: Andreanne Brosseau, Kaja Piszczek

Video and audio: Paul Bohm, Dila Kirmizitoprak, Stepan Nesterenko

Drawings: traces at the edge (2021), David J. Lieberman

Cinematic painting, editor: Martin Riese

Sound recordist: Daniel M. C. Lieberman

Creator, producer, and director: David J. Lieberman

Music: Kuniko Kato plays Iannis Xenakis: Pléïades: Peaux (1978), Linn Records, with permission

A black and white image collage showing six frames of a woman with long, dark hair in various reclining and lying poses. The woman is draped in a light fabric and appears to be on a bed or soft surface in contemplative or relaxed positions.

Fig. 49.3 Photo collage, stills from video of An Architecture of Alchemy, image by author (2022).

Media 49.1 An Architecture of Alchemy: A Cinematic Painting, Studio of David J. Lieberman Architect, Toronto 2022.
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12434/cffbda1e

References

LIEBERMAN, David J. (2008), “Foreword”, in XENAKIS, Iannis, Music and Architecture: Architectural Projects, Texts, and Realizations, translated, compiled and presented by Sharon Kanach, Hillsdale, New York, Pendragon Press, p. ix–x.

LIEBERMAN, David J. (2011), “The SPACE between Notes”, in Elena Biserna and Precious Brown (eds.), Cinema, Architecture, Dispositif, Pasian di Prato, Campanotto Editore, p. 200–11.

1 “traces at the edge” is a series of sculptural drawings that conceptually and compositionally can be understood as choreographic notations for dancers’ hour-long performance in response to the music of Iannis Xenakis and poetic texts of the author.