Hard Data R. Luke DuBois

Transcription

1 Hard Data R. Luke DuBois or amliied string quartet (c)2009 R. Luke DuBois (ASCAP). all rights reserved. Notation / Perormance Instructions: Instruments are to be amliied with transducer (reerred) or close miking. Amliication should be adjusted so that col legno assages marked are clearly audible. Accidentals carry through the measure. Finger and bow tremolo should be in strict measured time. sul ont / col legno bowing should be done senza vibrato. ortamento hrases should land "at itch" on the beat.

2 Hard Data or amliied string quartet and video in six movements world remière, june 24, 2009 ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, brooklyn, ny I II III IV V VI - men - children - soldiers - reugees - women - missing Data taken rom: The Brookings Institute The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Iraq Body Count The U.S. Det. o State Bureau o Near Eastern Aairs The Joint Economic Committee o the U.S. Congress Iraq Today The New York Times Six years have gone by since the United States invaded Iraq, in March o 200. The decision to invade, and the rationale behind it, has emerged as a deining event in the relationshi between the United States and the rest o the world, and will be read by history as a watershed moment in the geoolitics o the 21st century. To the eole o Iraq, the invasion has brought alternating streams o trauma, dislacement, ear, anger, conusion, and - in liminal saces between and among the wreckage o their country - aint and growing shimmers o hoe. To eole here in the United States, the Iraq war has been, deending on your rame o reerence, a necessary and just resonse to the rovocations o the regime o Saddam Hussein, an unnecessary and wasteul war o choice that has bankruted our moral authority in the world and damaged our uture security and stability, or a tragic event that has claimed the lie o a loved one, neighbor, classmate, riend, or acquaintance. For many Americans, all three are true, to some degree. But or many o us, the Iraq war is a vague and distant worry, delivered to us through mass media, and embodied most strongly by a stream o numbers. These numbers are always there, ollowing us, and they seem to be haunted. Living under a 24-hour news cycle, wired to the overwhelming commentary o citizen journalism within a culture obsessed with statistics, has made the Iraq war the irst conlict in which, or most o us, we ossess more data than knowledge. This is artly a shortcoming o the mediatized Iraq resented to us in video, sound, and images, which gives us a monolithically stark and necessarily limited view o a human conlict that, whether issued as soundbite or hoto essay, we shy away rom. But the real reason or our ab- stract understanding o this conlict is our willingness to seek solace in acts. Our volunteer military (in which only a raction o our society articiates) ights overseas against insurgent elements (in a country ew o us have visited) in the hoes o stabilizing a country (with which we have little com- mon cultural currency). This is not a act, but a comlex and devastating concet, and many o us ind our mind s eye strained; so instead o shock as we watch news reorts, read an entire sectrum o ress coverage, and consume anecdotal summaries, we learn the numbers o war. We anesthetize ourselves with hard data. I conusing inormation with exerience is a vice then our country is guilty. I have sent the last six months looking at the acts, igures, statistics, and documents o the Iraq war. I know three vet- erans o the Iraq conlict ersonally, none o whom are inclined to look charitably on the act that we reer to understand this war largely in inormation sace and ret about it ar more in terms o iscal and moral damage than human cost. Americans like to know numbers. 0 states. 00 million eole. I am guilty, too.

3 Ian MacKaye, o the band Fugazi, once wrote that we need an instrument / to ind out, how loss could weigh. This coulet seemed rohetic to me in high school, as I elated to the militant anticaitalism and dense, sad anger o its double message. What seemed so imortant to me about that lyric then has been orgotten, but the lyric now seems incredibly to the oint. The Iraq War, delivered to most o us as a real-time stream o data, is all about loss. We have lost lives; we have lost iscal certitude; we have lost our moral comass; and we have lost a vital element o our national integrity thanks to the artisanshi o those who have scored olitical oints over this war. In order or us to make sense o this loss, it has to resonate beyond acts and igures, because the hard data we look at is hard in that other way. Not reliable, but unbearable. We need that instrument. Badly. Which brings me to this roject. A work-in-rogress i there ever was one. The comoser Iannis Xenakis had a unique git or creating kinetic masses o sound out o statistical rocesses. More imortant here (and the reason why I mention him), his exeriences as a artisan in the Second World War and his training as an architect under Le Corbusier gave him a unique com- etence to comose music that sounded like war. Aware o the acute dierence between strategy and tactics, Xenakis created music that erectly evoked the dialectic o a situation that, though well- lanned and executed on a macro-scale (stragetic), was incomrehensible and chaotic at the event level (tactical). Furthermore, Xenakis interdiscilinary acumen as an architect/comoser led him to develo a theory o meta-art, based around the idea that any medium can serve to realize the same artistic exression. Hard Data is a data-mining and soniication roject based around data rom the American military actions in Iraq. The aim o the iece is to create an oen-source score which can be realized by any number o eole in any medium. The version resented here tonight is an arrangement o some o this inormation into six movements or amliied string quartet with video rojection. Concetually, it ris o o Xenakis understanding o ormalized music, though musically it mixes in more than a little Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Crumb, three comosers who wrote in temore belli. Most imortantly, however, this realization is grounded in an algorithmic realization o the source data through the ilter o that country s current national anthem, Mohammad Flaiel s setting o Ibrahim Touqan s 194 oem Mawtini. Hard Data was a 2009 commission o New American Radio and Perorming Arts, Inc. or its Tur- bulence web site (turbulence.org). This was made ossible with unding rom the New York City Deartment o Cultural Aairs. I d like to thank Helen Thorington and Jo-Ann Green or their aith in the roject; the Mivos String Quartet or remiering the work; Toni Dove, Michael Joaquin Grey, Laura Blereau, and Susan Gladstone; Zach Layton and Nick Hallett or rogramming the iece as art o their Darmstadt Institute ; the Issue Project Room and Suzanne Fiol, or giving me such a great sace in which to erorm. Enjoy. R. Luke DuBois New York City June, 2009

4 Violin I Violin II q=100 Viola Violoncello strong and mournul izz. izz. Hard Data: I izz. izz. R. Luke DuBois 26

5 2 m m m m

6 q=80 delicate and shimmering... R. Luke DuBois sul onticello Violin I Violin II Viola Violoncello sul onticello Hard Data: II sul onticello sul onticello m

7 2 42 7

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10 sul ont. sul ont. sul ont. sul ont.

11 q=120 Violin I Violin II Viola Violoncello with alse bravado... Hard Data: III R. Luke DuBois izz. izz. izz. izz. 8 19

12 izz. izz. izz. izz. izz. izz. izz.

13 6 izz. izz. izz. 61

14 q=100 Hard Data: IV R. Luke DuBois Violin I thin and haunting... Violin II Viola Violoncello 14 col legno (battuto / tratto) col legno (battuto / tratto) col legno (battuto / tratto) col legno (battuto / tratto) 27

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17 Violin I Violin II Viola Violoncello q=60 choral... semre legato 1 2 Hard Data: V semre legato semre legato semre legato R. Luke DuBois

18 2 46

19 Violin I Violin II Viola Violoncello q= angry... Hard Data: VI R. Luke DuBois 7

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