Empress, Perpetual Music for Small Motors and Percussion | 2010 | 15min | Sound Performance | Canada
Aside from its wordy title, Perpetual Music for Small Motors and Percussion bears little reference to any maximalist sound making sensibilities. Instead, a small percussive set-up and a few motor-driven devices acting as perpetual strumming machines become the showcase. Limitation, decay, and subtle dynamics play central roles in the piece. An atmosphere created from sonic repetition and controlled minimalism plot the overall trajectory, an experience likely to induce states of temporal and auditory disorientation amongst audience members.
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Adrian Dziewanski is a sound artist who actively records, performs, and writes about music under his own name and also the pseudonyms Empress and Blake M. Strukof. Dziewanski’s artistic practice was ignited into existence sometime in the early 21st century, due to a personal discovery of contemporary drone music and an on-going search for a cure to the prolonged effects of a conventional suburban upbringing. He believes in the potency of musical happenstance and thus, the insistent use of analog tape, small motors, and found objects in a conscious effort to fuse the esoteric with the beautiful. He lives and practices in Vancouver.
