La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela

As an echo to The Adventure of Colour and in the prolongation of the presentation of the Dream House, a luminous and musical installation first performed as a our hands duet by the duo of artists La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Centre Pompidou-Metz presents The Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights 87 V 10 6:43:00 PM – 87 V 11 01:07:45 AM NYC, considered to be the master work of La Monte Young.

It was in 1962 that the American composer La Monte Young first performed The Four Dreams of China and becomes aware of his desire to “construct musical works which could be played for a very long time, indeed indefinitely”. In the same year, he met the visual artist and musician Marian Zazeela and as early as the month of August 1963, they conceive together the first visual and sonic installation by the name of Dream House. Marian Zazeela developed in it a system of progressive and coloured lighting which she placed on suspended mobiles. As far as La Monte Young is concerned he uses different oscillators of sinusoidal waves, oscilloscopes, amplifiers and loudspeakers to produce continuous frequency environments. The music played, made up of held notes which can be prolonged indefinitely, provoke a minimal reaction from the suspended mobiles. The projected shadow, resulting from the combination of several light sources, creates new three dimensional forms.