Background

A 20 minute performance involving 4 players (sax, guitar & 2 synthesizers) and 4 TV monitors performed live by → ↑ →.

Ralph Traviato & Philip Brophy - Open Channel, Melbourne © 1979

Credits

Concept & direction - Philip Brophy
Performers - Anthony Montemurro, Ralph Traviato, Leigh Parkhill & Philip Brophy

1979

VIDEO PLUS - Open Channel, Melbourne

Anthony Montemurro, Ralph Traviato, Leigh Parkhill & Philip Brophy - Open Channel, Melbourne © 1979

Overview

By The Light Of The Silvery Moon is part of a trilogy of multi-monitor video performance/installation pieces developed by → ↑ → around this time - the other two being Suddenly I Moved (1979) and A non Space (1981).These earlier experiments in audiovision would determine Philip Brophy's approaches to film scores and sound design for many years to come.

Technical

From the original programme note

This is simply a structural process piece that takes a fragment from the song "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon" and repeats it in a mathematical permutation series. The score goes through all the possible combinations of using 4, 3, 2 and 1 players to play the melodic fragment. The parts the four players play are divided into lead melody line, backing harmony, chord sequence; and bass line.

The 4 players are positioned behind the monitors, a player per monitor, with the players facing the audience and monitors facing the players, i.e. the audience sees only the backs of the monitors and the head and shoulders of the players. All lights are out, with the only light coming from the monitors which illuminate the players.

When a player is not playing, he is sitting down behind the monitor with it switched off, so that throughout the piece the audience is seeing the players only when they are playing. The players' audible presence is thus structurally in sync with their visual presence. When we can't hear a particular player's part, we can't see him.