Parkinson Saunders

Parkinson Saunders have worked together since 2003. They have played at Tate Modern, Kings Place, Q-02, St Marks NY, Cut & Splice, Cutting Edge, //hcmf, Tectonics and The Wellcome Collection. Saunders lives in Portishead, Parkinson lives in London.

Tim Parkinson

Tim Parkinson is a composer lives in London, organises concert series Music We’d Like To Hear.

James Saunders

James Saunders is a composer with an interest in group behaviours and decision making. He performs in the duo Parkinson Saunders. He runs the Open Scores Lab at Bath Spa University.

Performance

Video works, March–June 2020

This project began following the lockdown at the end of March. Three concert dates were cancelled for us: one at Audiograft on 28th March, the other at Iklectik in London, with a further date at Farnham University postponed until further notice.  For these dates we were preparing new work. The announcement of the lockdown spawned an idea to make video realisations of works from our older repertoire (two cardboard boxes, and Alvin Lucier’s Opera With Objects). Since we live roughly 130 miles apart, and rarely meet except for concerts, much of our repertoire has been focussed around work that has loose coordination of parts, or simultaneous activity, which can be quickly assembled for live performance. Therefore this kind of work lent itself easily to making realisations of these works for split-screen video where each half was recorded in another location and at another time.

This then led to the conception of new work exclusively for this medium, and has been largely focussed on the exploitation of the inherent differences which arise when filming the same or similar material in two separate locations, with different equipment (whatever is available to realise the work), and different DIY filming methods (phone or iPad), at two different times. This creates a dialogue between the two halves of the screen, where unforeseen variables of behaviour, style, or manner become foregrounded.

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