RICHTERS PATTERNS

Marcus Schmickler

An exchange between visual arts and contemporary music

One of the central interests of the Ensemble Musikfabrik is to regularly go beyond the genre of music and mix with other cultural fields. This wish has been fulfilled again with RICHTERS PATTERNS by Marcus Schmickler, a piece commissioned by KölnMusik. Gerhard Richter once expressed his wish for an exchange between visual arts and contemporary music. This conversation led to this extraordinary collaboration between the painter, director Corinna Belz, composer Marcus Schmickler and the Ensemble Musikfabrik.

Gerhard Richter took photographs of parts of his paintings and gave them to Corinna Belz for further editing. She created a movie that wasn’t filmed with cameras but was a result from individual frames that were generated by computer operations (montage: Rudi Heinen). “This way very interesting possibilities to create a new, abstract film format were opened up – far from galeries and exhibition rooms: A viewing experience that presents a musical composition not as accompanying film music but as an interpretation of the image’s rhythm”, said Corinna Belz.

Film and music were created simultaneously and yet follow their own logic. The film is based on a determined principal of construction. Thereby, inharmoniousness between image and sound are created on purpose. Smallest deviations change the perception – which also creates a challenge for the Ensemble. Marcus Schmickler: “It was important to me that there is a deceleration on both levels. This leads to the fact that the chronological unfolding happens imperceptibly and an atmospherical level is created which is similar to looking at a picture. The impression of a temporal linearitiy vanishes. Finding the right musical aquivalent for this, that was very appealing to me.”