The word “folly” is an English term to mean foolish or lacking good sense. In French, the word “folie” emphasizes aesthetic beauty over practicality to the point of being extravagant, whimsical or silly. This is an egregiously unfair way to denigrate the need to enliven our surroundings with objects and structures that enhance one’s life experience.
“Humankind needs structures and tools that are enriched beyond the severely utilitarian,” wrote Victor Papanek in his timeless book Design for the Real World. “Delight, balance, and that pleasing harmony of proportions that we project outward into the world are psychological necessities for us.”
For this piece, Suss Müsik took inspiration from the contemplative “stone face ruins” of Chanticleer’s public gardens. The “ruins” are not ruins at all, but rather a hardscape of three ornamental ‘rooms’ evoking a sense of mystery. One room in particular warrants mention: from the bubbling, deep black depths of a 24-foot reflecting pool surrounded by lush succulents, polished marble faces gaze upward in repose.
Suss Müsik created a soundscape using custom devices built from the “ruins” of old computer hardware. Two contact mic-inputs are passed through a Meng Qi Wingie2, which was controlled by a handmade MIDI input. One channel was refactored as an arp sequence; the other provided a vaporous coloring agent when passed through heavy reverb. A fourth device controlled three synth voices with grain modulation playing the same arp sequence. Here’s a video of the performance: Papanek [Disquiet0565] - YouTube
The piece is titled Papanek and was recorded live in October 2022. The image is taken from a summer 2022 trip to Chanticleer.
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