Decasia as Audiovisual Elegy. Issue 3 (3rd July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Hannah
• Is Part Of: Journal of musicological research. Volume 37:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 189
• Page End: 208
• Publication Date: 2018-07-03
• Subjects: Music -- Periodicals; Musicology -- Periodicals; 780.72
• DOI: 10.1080/01411896.2018.1477399
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-1896

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Decasia (2001), video artist Bill Morrison and composer Michael Gordon's most critically acclaimed collaboration, consists of assembled archival footage from nitrate film prints in various stages of decomposition, accompanied by an orchestral score with detuned instruments. By foregrounding its material instability, Decasia highlights the precarious nature of its own forms. Situated within larger discourses about both film and music in the digital age, the work can be viewed an elegy for a dual ontological death: of cinema and symphonic music. Analysis of the work sheds light on how artists and composers comment on new technologies through old ones.