hinausgehen

An audio-visual sonata Made from improvised studio sessions and
spontaneous video recordings layered upon each other to form a complete
audio-visual composition in the classical form with 1st exposition, 2nd
development and 3rd recapitulation

Eine audiovisuelle Sonate Studio-Improvisationen und ihre spon-
tane Visualisierung bilden gemeinsam eine audiovisuelle Komposition
in der klassischen Form der Sonate aus 1. Exposition, 2. Durchführung
und 3. Reprise

ABOUT A BEING

During the last three months I’ve been working on a project whose intention
is to be a metaphor to the creative and personal evolutions from one state to
another during the period I was being naturalized from an American citizen
into a fully fledged German-European. This project is called HINAUSGEHEN.
The word is German for to go out. Über etwas hinausgehen means to trans
cend something and to leave something behind. I chose to follow a 3-move
ment sonata form to narrate various metamorphoses. While making the first
movement I was an American (Exposition), in the second I was stateless with-
out any political affiliation (Development), and in the third I became a Ger-
man citizen (Recapitulation).

The music and images are meant to reflect not only these ideas but to also
give a personal retrospective. Movement 1 was made in a single studio ses-
sion at the Geräuschkulisse with Miriam Siebenstädt. We worked together
over several small studio projects during 2009. In this time I learned a great
deal about collaboration, experimentation, music theory and improvisation.
This movement was to be done within a couple takes and with no editing. It
is pure and naked and highlights the creative relationship we’ve built. The
second movement is an evolution into editing and arrangement. It becomes
playful and bright, much like my time spent making Anderecast. It’s the
state of learning and actively using what one learns. The third is fully
planned and calculated. It is about growth and obtaining control over one’s
creative power and to communicate directly with the viewer. HINAUSGEHEN
begins from chaotic analogue sources and refines itself into a programmed
electronic composition. The visuals reflect various methods learned and
experimented with over the last years, particularly in 2009. UNTER UNS
KOLLEGEN (movement 1) in German means roughly: between us colleagues.
Everything in this video is as improvised as the music and made in one
session. The second movement IMP (short for improvisation) was an un-
finished study project reimagined and rearranged into an entirely new com-
position. It is a conversation between me and the junction of creation. The
third, WESEN in German means: being, character, entity, nature or creature.
It is programmed to beintentional and self-aware.

HINAUSGEHEN serves as a catharsis. The first video I ever put together was
in high school in 1990. Over the last twenty years I’ve gone through one
creative endeavor after another with reasonable consistency and variable
success. I found art school unsatisfying and after a year chose to take a dif-
ferent path. Because of this I am a formally (and technically) uneducated
artist who has had to learn everything through trial and error. The last five
years have been particularly productive and so many projects have been
made that it’s impossible to account for how many. At the same time I’d
been going through an adaption (and adoption) process between languages
and cultures after walking completely blind into a country for which I had no
previous desire to see. As well all has been learned through trial and error. To
a certain extent learning also required unlearning. All boundaries have been
pushed and old skins have broken open to reveal new ones. This project is the
climactic end to one story and the foreword of another about to begin. The ex-
pulsion of old energy and ideas propels my transcension into a new form.

Ceven Knowles | March 2010