keine spiele | 2002

Keine-Spiele (No-Games) is a collection of a minimum of 21 short pieces involving slide and video projections, gestures/movements, md-player recordings and two performers. The pieces are considered autonomous compositions and are each composed individually and performed simultaneously or in succession. With each performance of Keine Spiele, a new constellation of pieces are played.

The performance takes place in a large space with the audience free to circulate. Each composition is performed in a different location in the room, the material and markings needed for each piece is prepared in advance creating different 'performance stations' throughout the space. In order to follow the different pieces, the standing audience is obliged to shift from one spot to another in the room. This movement of the audience is a secondary compositional layer in the overall performance.

Influenced by serial music techniques, where deconstruction is used to build a new language, the pieces are created out of deconstructed daily gestures and movements, field recordings and still images played through a slide projector. The images appear in sequences like the singular frames of a deconstructed film.

The compositions explore 'developing variations' - non-thematic series where each event is related to the last but according to a constantly shifting logic (A is related to B and B to C, but C has no relation at all to A). This system, while producing an endless source of compositional material, also allowed for a certain amount of transparency and readability towards an observing audience.

At the origin of this work on composition, was a desire to develop an approach to multi media - here seen as the combination of different media in a non-hierarchical way. In order to avoid falling into cliches, it was necessary to first problematize the notion of materiality. This involved accentuating the specificity and the non comparability of the different media, while engaging in a critical research into the idea of 'material' in general and the narrowness of the boundaries which separate each art form.

With Keine Spiel, there is a resistance to the typical construction of analogies between, for example, sound and movement or sound and image. Each media is treated independently and each material is composed autonomously. These short pieces, while sometimes occurring simultaneously, remain mutually exclusive. The goal of this approach was to create the opportunity for the comparison of otherwise incomparable elements and the differentiation of the usually compared.

After several performances of Keine-Spiele, David Helbich and Shila Anaraki decided to take the project one step further, this time taking the composition of the movement of the public as their central interest. The result was the piece Keine-Spiele Merh (No-Games/More), a choreography for the audience, which was presented at the Monty in 2006.

David Helbich went on to develop another aspect of Keine-Spiele with There Are Many Ways to Say Gleichzeitigkeit. In this duet, created together with Boris Baltschun, the compositional use of slide projectors is juxtaposed with the electronic sound improvisations of Boris. (see There Are Many Ways . . .)

concept :
David Helbich
performance :
Shila Anaraki, David Helbich
support :
Nadine, frogs OS