Litanies in Zero Kelvin, by Girilal Baars

Litanies in Zero Kelvin (How to clear Your Voice)

Outside the Chapel of the Old Church Yard
This work is extremely site specific, it is conceptually charged, has a strong visual impact, it has a disquieting sense of being inappropriate, and the artistic elements from different fields in the work are melted together into a powerful performance. Yet, the work might be regarded as eccentric, more a concert than a performance artwork. And this is where friction enters discussion and make it creative.
What, then, makes a concert a work of Performance Art? Or not? Music in fact is a performing art; the concert is performed by someone, has its duration in time and place, is irreversible and to some extent unrepeatable, might be provocative, addresses an audience etc.. But what could make us apprehend the piece as a work of Performance Art? The Festival as an institutional setting is helpful but problematic, because of a tendency to frame the concept of Performance Art from a Visual Arts point of view. As in Art, the break with conventions has been a regular treat in musical tradition for a while. But as performance itself has been at the core of the historical musical concept, the challenges has been differently staged. Still, John Cages 4.33, where the pianist opens the lid of the piano only to close it after 4.33 minutes of silence, looks to me as an important work in Performance Art History. The work of course is regarded as a piece of music and silence has, since then, even been subjected to copyrigth trials. But the work, considered in a performance art perspective, is site specific, provocative, mentally distressing, conceptual, visual, sensual, open towards a specific sound scape etc.. And my point is, that Litanies in Zero Kelvin has exactly the same properties, except for the lack of silence.
To understand the work we need to perform a phenomenological reduction. Observe the musical elements of the work, then put them in suspension, bracket them in, or cross them out. Consider the rest, and then reconsider the musical elements as music in suspension, quotations, fragments etc.. Only this way we can set aside the strong impact of tradition. Basically, this a procedure useful whenever we need to distinguish a work of performance art from other traditional art froms included in the work.