2 Cameras @ Sea

From www.oscarvandillen.com

"All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean. And therefore we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears; we are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came."
John F. Kennedy

Contents 1 2 Cameras @ Sea 1.1 Description 1.1.1 Film 1.1.2 Music 1.2 Program text for the music 2 Concerts and Screenings 3 Part of Utopia Suite 4 Documentary 5 External links

2 Cameras @ Sea

Description

Film

2 Cameras @ Sea is a film by Clive Holden, with original music and soundscape by Oscar van Dillen; the project was commissioned by the Images Festival.

A project description of 2 Cameras @ Sea on Clive Holdens website can be found here.

Music

The score for 2 Cameras @ Sea (afl, bcl, vi, vc, pi, perc, soundscape), duration appr. 10 minutes, was composed for the Continuum Ensemble and commissioned by the Images Festival.

Original music score and soundscape by Oscar van Dillen, the music can be performed live with the film.

Program text for the music

The music and soundscape for 2 Cameras @ Sea were developed and composed after a careful study of the movements of water and the sounds it produced. The larger movements I found in the salt water of the seas, increasingly so from the North Sea at several places in the Netherlands to the Channel in Normandy. The smaller movements of water I traced back to their origins in the sweet water of small mountain-brooks, high up in the Tarentaise. The obvious common element in music and water is the wave, and in both cases these waves can simultaneously happen on a completely different scale. In fact, I started treating individual tones as drops, phrases as waves, parts as tides, as it were working from the atoms themselves upwards. In this way the piece completely avoids any hint of programmatic music and has achieved its own flow.

The soundscape contains processed original recordings of the water sounds, and an interview with Martin Holden by his son Clive. Music and spoken text each take part in an auditive interplay: the layers of music, language and sound are unfolding their parallel stories and their form, substance and content, water and music, become as one.

I dedicate the score to Martin Holden, by whose outspoken wisdom it was inspired.

The score was commissioned by the Images Festival www.imagesfestival.com

(text by Oscar van Dillen, September 2008)

Concerts and Screenings

World premiere 21 November 2008 during the Shift Festival in Muziekgebouw aan het IJ, and 2 April 2009 in Images Festival in Toronto.

Part of Utopia Suite

(Part of the larger project Utopia Suite (2006-2012), in collaboration with Clive Holden: see also cyclopspress and www.cliveholden.com)

Documentary

Canadian multidisciplinary artist Vera Frenkel made a video documentary of the Opening Gala of the 22nd Images Festival of Film, Video and New Media held at the Isabel Bader Theatre, Toronto, April 2nd, 2009, also featuring 2 Cameras @ Sea. For more information see www.verafrenkel.com.

External links

• A full project description can be found on Clive Holden's website here.
• www.utopiasuite.com