Automatic Writing
composed by Robert Ashley
live adaptation by Object Collection
Object Collection’s live, staged adaptation of Robert Ashley’s seminal studio composition, Automatic Writing.
Originally composed in recorded form over five years culminating in a studio recording in 1979, Robert Ashley’s Automatic Writing is the result of the composer’s fascination with involuntary speech. Ashley said, “I went towards the idea of sounds having a kind of magical function – of being able to actually conjure characters. It seemed to me that in a sort of psycho-physical sense sounds can actually make you see things, can give you images that are quite specific.” He recorded and analyzed the repeated lines of his own mantra, extracting four musical characters and creating an early form of ambient music that is incredibly evocative.
On a stage strewn with television monitors, video cameras, and dim pools of slowly shifting light, Object Collection evokes the four characters – or parts –while crafting an environment that aims to heighten the enigma and melancholic mood of the original. Performers inhabit four disparate islands, contributing to a dense sound environment. The recording, which never had a score for performance, is treated as a composition that can be interpreted instead of recreated. The result is a mirage-like, transient and vibrant environment, conducive to listening to the music, as well as enriching it.
