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Quad Suite (Six Vibrations for Agnes Martin, Hebes Grande...

Richard Landry

1972 00:32:58 United StatesEnglishB&WMono4:33/4" U-matic video
Tags:
Music, Sound, Video History

Description

Capitalizing on the visual aspect of musical performance, Quad Suite explores the essential link between the image of music and its sound. In Six Vibrations, the camera is riveted to a close-up of the four upper frets of Landry’s guitar, maintaining an image of the sound easily identified with the gridded field paintings of Agnes Martin. In Hebe’s Grande Bois, Landry improvises on a bamboo flute as the camera frames his mouth, again in extreme close-up, in the center of the screen. There is something sensual, almost obscene, about Landry’s lips. 4th Register is a sonorous piece for tenor saxophone, in which Landry deliberately sets out to test the limits of the instrument.

About Richard Landry

Richard Landry came to video through his abiding interest in music, recognizing the medium as a way to combine audio recording and live performance. Intrigued by the visual resonance or "image" of sound, Landry pushes his tapes beyond documentation toward a fusion of audio and visual rhythms. Constructing his music through improvisation, with equal emphasis on chance, emotional influences, and experimentation, Landry’s compositions move through various harmonies toward dissonance and back again. In his performances of the 1970s, Landry pioneered the use of a quadraphonic delay system that allowed him to perform as a live quintet from his solo performance, combining his voice with four time-delayed repeats. As a founding member of the Phillip Glass Ensemble, he was active in the experimental music movement of the '70s and early '80s. Like many artists working in an interdisciplinary mode, the fundamental concerns of Landry’s work circulate around randomness, harmony, and repetition. From the cultural perspective, these videotapes document an exciting passage in the history of American art, a time of concentrated fusion between artistic disciplines.

"I became involved with sound/image experimentation with Keith Sonnier. The tapes deal with the source of the sound: the lips, the hands, the instrument itself."
—Richard Landry