Jane
Okay. Hello, everyone. Whoever this may be, so we are penombra, a curatorial collective at Royal College of Art, and then we are here with Gabriel Prokofiev. And then we are very excited to learn more about your world and then how it coincides with our curatorial initiatives. So maybe before we dig into it, maybe we can give a brief introduction about what this project is about so that we can understand the context more deeper. Beverley, would you like to do so?
Beverley
For our end of the year project, we present a transnational, liminal and diasporic encounter which queries the invisible and invisible and transparency and opacity. And Gabriel is presenting an immersive and interactive reimagining of his composition HOWL!. The second scene ‘Separation’ and the fourth scene ‘Pulse’. In these two musical scenes, the transnational is conveyed through electronic classical music, which transcends the conventions of boundaries and linguistic divides to hover in an atemporal transience.
Alongside Gabriel’s music, we are displaying acetates with answers to our questionnaire. This public participatory project provides an invisible yet audible voice and a collective chorus without an author.
Jane
Well, thanks for the introduction Beverley. So yes, now we are here with you. And then could you actually just briefly introduce yourself more deeply?
Gabriel
So my name is Gabriel Prokofiev. I'm a composer, and I compose electronic music and classical music, and I'm really interested in creating work that reflects the experience of contemporary life. So I really like using electronic sounds because our world view, our world experience has become so intertwined with electronic and digital technology that it feels essential for me to bring that into a lot of my music.
I also like composing for acoustic instruments, traditional classical instruments as well, and I'm very interested in just the emotional power of sound and often using quite visceral and physical sounds alongside much more expressive, emotive, melodic and harmonic sounds.
Jane
And then that's how we got involved in our penombra, the theme itself. So maybe Beverley, I think you have some questions about it.
Beverley
What is the musical trajectory by which you came to the interactivity? And, I think that that also resonates with our theme of the transnational and the intermingling of cultures.
Gabriel
So, I mean, the theme that the penombra project has really, really appeals to me, and it resonates with my interests in creating work that can communicate to anybody. And, you know, use music as a unifying tool that can show, I suppose, what humans have in common rather than their differences. I mean, obviously different cultures have quite different traits and stylistic aspects to their music, and I love music from all different nations and parts of the world, and, so sometimes I hope that I can take subtle influences from different parts of the world to kind of help make that music have that broader appeal.
So this idea of trans nationalism and, this way that in contemporary life we kind of we kind of perhaps lose some of our nationalistic identity and enter a kind of more individual, free, sense of self in the digital world that really I find that very interesting, especially for someone who's interested in what how we experience this digital life.
And, so I have this work HOWL!, which the initial theme of the piece actually is about protest. It was initially inspired by the protests of the Arab Spring going back to 2011, 2012. And already the process of that was me as a Londoner, as a European then kind of observing cultures in the Arab world and the Middle East going through something, really, really emotionally powerful, very exciting, very important, and then reacting to that with my music.
And already so I was trying to move across cultures in my response. And then over time, the piece actually evolved into something that I performed in many different places. I performed it in Hong Kong during the protests there in 2019. I've performed it in Russia, where obviously there's big issues of the right to protest and freedom of speech, all around Europe. And so the piece, actually the meaning starts to be more about our experience of digital life and our kind of emotional struggles of finding our identity, finding our place, finding our voice. And this project's allowed that aspect of it to really come through. And the sounds that are used, particularly in the opening piece separation are these represent stations of kind of the digital experience, these clicking sounds that can sound quite sweet to the ear and then can sound really quite threatening and overwhelming.
And that's when the interactions come in. So when those sounds as they appear at first just on the loudspeakers, are quite harsh and quite aggressive. And I think it kind of represents the sometimes overwhelming nature of contemporary life, especially when you're kind of opened up to all kinds of emotions and anger and different conflicting viewpoints online.
But then as you approach the speakers, the sounds then become lighter and crisper and slightly more appealing to the ear. They start to sound more, just not as heavy as and as overbearing. And then, different interactions change the sounds of the music subtly in different loudspeakers. We have eight loudspeakers around us, so we have this sort of surround effect.
So yeah, for me, the chance to actually have interactions from the audience was really exciting, and it felt necessary in the way that we were presenting the piece. You know, we already have
the interaction from the text that's been prepared by the curators, and they have had this questionnaire people have answered and that's been printed, all these different views of what how people see themselves kind of on the edges of the shadows and how they see their identity.
So we see that interaction, and we can then enjoy the musical work, and then subtly, by moving towards some of the speakers, find ourselves slightly changing it to how we might feel to make it more comfortable to perhaps, or just just feel ourselves part of the journey. There is also a melodic part, a slow moving melodic part that when you reach down towards the speaker, it suddenly opens up and it's as though you're kind of reaching into the shadows and the sounds as it moves around the speakers.
And that is, again, to make the public feel like they're really going inside the music at that point. Also, they can reach up to the ceiling and that creates this kind of sparkling, magical sound that swirls around the eight speakers. Again, that's another way of sort of escaping into a kind of magical place up in the sky.
Then there's a sub. We have a subwoofer that's creating this deep, throbbing bass. We've put that in as an extra interaction for people with any kind of hearing impairment. And so when they put their hand on the sensor, the sub gets significantly louder and they can really feel the vibrations as they approach their hand to it and then touch the light that's above the speaker.
And the final interaction we have is a lightbox, for me it's kind of resembling a screen, which we spend so much of our lives looking at screens, whether it's for work, which is a large portion of people, or often just in a spare time. Even for entertainment, going to the cinema and then and then offering as a kind of an addiction, looking at phones and for communication, of course.
And this screen is quite bright and as you cover it with a black curtain that changes the sound, it softens an aggressive sound into a softer, more muffled sound. So that's again kind of trying to cast a shadow, I guess, over the screens that seem to interfere with their lives.
Jane
And I'm really, really excited that we really try to make this interactivity happen. I believe this is the first time that you're trying this. But it is actually the continuum of what you have done with live performances. You have always focused on making your music very experiential and tactile. And then I really love how you use the medium that is so anational, to transcend the borders, the trance at the time, to transcend the cultures.
And I'm so excited to see how the audience would react to this interactivity. And then compared to that, how people would react to your life performances that you're going to do three times over the course of the exhibition. And so you're going to be performing twice on the opening day, and then on the final day you're going to be performing with the violinist.
Could you actually just kind of tell us more about your theme and then your direction about the live performances compared to this? I'm sure that there is some kind of motive that you're aiming for when you're inviting these live violinists, clarinets or cellists into your performances.
Gabriel
I mean, so you know, as I already mentioned, the nature of the sounds I'm using are these very raw electronic sounds that, you know, for me, were a kind of embodiment of electronic communication, right? These kind of strange clicking sounds and then in the second piece, the Pulse, it's more about the slow throbbing energy of communication I guess, of electric currents and these are sounds that could come from anywhere.
So they have this anational transnational aspect to them. For me when you use sounds like that an electronic sounds obviously in their original form, they are cold sounds and that's part of the charm and the interest because they highlight a big aspect of our lives, which is interaction with kind of completely cold machinery and computers.
But obviously when you hear a piece of music, you do want a human element. So when I do the live performances, it's really important for me to have the melodic material. The more emotional material performed by a human being. So either I'm performing it on a ROLI Seaboard, which is
a kind of smooth rubber keyboard that allows you to add vibrato and glissando, and you can move your finger on across the keyboard, almost like a violinist would move on the fingerboard rather than with a synthesizer when you're or a piano when you're stuck to just single keys, to buttons.
So that allows for a lot of expressivity. And then at the same time, I will also alter the more mechanical sounds with filters and volume and try and shape them also to kind of humanize them in some way, you know, and make them interact with the melodic material. Then, when we do the live performance with Kasia Zimińska, a fantastic violinist who's actually, I've got an ensemble now called the Gabriel Prokofiev Ensemble, and she's the first violinist for that.
We performed HOWL! a couple of times and she performs it brilliantly. And then obviously, for me, it's great to then perform with another musician. I then play a slightly different part on the ROLI. I play a kind of a counter melody and she plays the main melody.
Then there's an actual conversation between the two of us and performance. So that takes it to another level of humanity and interaction. Then going to this installation version with the interactions, that's something new to me. It's something I've been dreaming of doing for a long time. And I guess, it is like a natural extension or kind of a side, horizontal and as a parallel version of the live version, because instead of myself doing the human touch, the visitors, the public bring in that human touch.
And so all depending on their movements, they soften some of the aggressive sounds. Or the melodic sound, they kind of throw it around the room, they make it move and they can control
when it kind of crescendos and grows. It's another way of adding a human element.
Jane
And so wonderful that you're doing it, we were really happy when you first proposed this idea because when we interpreted, transnationalism and the core message and key question that we wanted to ask to the audience and all the participants was, “What if we hold autonomy in writing our own history, making ourselves visible and invisible, and then hold a right for it?”
And then I think that really opens up to humanity, and then the humane element that you were really aiming for. And so, yeah, I'm really, really, truly excited about it. Beverly, do you have any other questions that you want to ask?
Beverley
What strikes me about what you've just said is this aspect of embodiment. And I think what's interesting about the project is that there's both the embodiment in the viewer who becomes surrounded by your music and their response to it physically in the interaction, by going towards the center sensors and interacting with them in different ways, so that you then have the intermingling of your sounds with the ones created by the viewer.
And also in your live performances, you also have the embodiment of you as a performer, altering and responding to another human performer who is quite dynamic in the way in which they are physically responding. And as you say, there is some element of it not being mechanical, thereby perhaps seen as perfect. But you also get that aspect of interpretation, that's going on live and in an embodied fashion.
Jane
I think we talked enough about the work and then what is going to be available for the audience to experience. But is there any kind of specific message or any kind of news that you want to share to the audience?
Gabriel
I mean, I suppose, you know, in this particular case, this particular work, it is a composition that already has its own journey. And so the interactions, you know, we talked about our autonomy, if I was writing maybe a new piece or maybe I would find- and this would require a lot more research- I'd find a way for the public to really have even more control over the sound that happens.
But in this case, because it's a composed piece that has quite a clear journey here, the public, they're interacting and just shaping details. And so, my message would partly be that some of the sounds take a while to come in and so actually the first thing is just to listen and just to enjoy the journey and then slowly consider doing gentle interactions and using that as a kind of enhancement to how you experience and listen to the music.
In this case, the interactions aren't going to completely change the music. They're more just going to help you feel deeper inside it, if you see what I mean. So I think, you know, sometimes when people see interaction, they think, oh, maybe I'm going to better play melodies by moving my hand around. And in this case, that's not, it's a more subtle thing. It's more being immersed in the journey and just a way of just having a slightly deeper immersion than just listening to me.
Jane
We had so much fun interacting with that piece while installing as well. So we really hope and look forward to the audience enjoying this piece in person as well. So thank you so much Gabriel for sharing your story.
