No Collective - Tweaking of concert flyers (giving different starting time for each flyer...), contrivances to make each person a “solo” audience...

No Collective, Concertos, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2011.

"A musical notation can either describe an event that has already happened or prescribe an event to be performed by the reader. No Collective's (You Nakai. et al.) Concertos, the second book in the Emergency Playscript Series, uses both description and prescription to notate a musical performance. The original Concertos premiered in 2008 in Tokyo, performed by four musicians, a dog, a bird, and several guests. The playscript evokes the original piece while embedding the experience of reading the playscript into any subsequent performances of the piece."

"No Collective (You Nakai, et al.) makes music performances which explore and problematize both the conceptual and material infrastructures of music and performance.
Central to their endeavor is the generally unquestioned notion of people sharing "one" space and time at a music performance. In an attempt to dismantle this pseudo-truism, No Collective employ various strategies which extend from the tweaking of concert flyers (giving different starting time for each flyer, making three different flyers with different titles and designs but with the same date and place, etc), contrivances to make each person a “solo” audience (dragging each audience’s seat to different parts of the venue, controlling the sound volume in relation to the distance to a specific person, etc), to the pluralization of the framing of performance (packing all equipments during performance leaving only portable equipments carried by performers which continues to play as they head home with friends, etc). The basic objective of these temporal constructs is theoretical–ontological in that it examines what time is and the different ways it may be systematized, and practical-political in that it criticizes a singular ground to which all differences can be reduced, by foregrounding several incommensurate grounds.
Since its inception in 2006, members of No Collective have varied both in quantity (from one to twenty) and quality (from reluctant music novices to professional instrumentalists) according to each works’ objective and situational conditions. Following founder You Nakai’s relocation from Tokyo to New York in September 2009, the works of No Collective have shifted to a comparatively individual scale, addressing the physical conditions (medium specificity) of the performer/instrument, and consequently the border between public and private (the dividuality of the individual). Most recent works include , in which You Nakai did not sleep for the number of days it took him to learn how to play a lullaby on the piano, and then, in this sleepy state, performed the piece until he fell asleep."

"Believing themselves to be quite progressive for their species, a group of ants get together and decide to form a collective. They gather the necessary documentation, fill out all the proper information in the correct little boxes, get photos taken in appropriate size and dimension and angle, and step precisely through every single hoop required of them to become an officially recognized collective.
Their application is denied, however, on the grounds that ants are an inherently collective species, and this designation would be redundant and downright unnecessary.
One ant is so upset by this verdict that it begins to cry, thereby forging a breach in the collective emotional unity of the group. This very breach, however, makes the officer falter, reconsider for a brief moment, entertaining the possibility of a radical change of heart, but this very possibility of a change in the officer's heart makes the ant's tears dry up, which lands them all back at their original, inherently collective state, and that's the end of that story." - Sawako Nakayasu

"Tria Partio Voki
written by you nakai
premiered at yelena gluzman’s first performance party
ABSTRACT
Lead-In:
At a party, the operator will casually chat with each person, asking for their phone numbers. Having assembled a list of all phone numbers, the operator will go to another room.
Part 1:
Using the phone numbers given to him, the operator will start calling people, one by one. The receiver of his phone will act as a microphone, and the speakers of the other 3 phones will be the sounds sources used to make music. The solo listener will hear any combination of jingles, phone information, telephonic radio programs, telephone story lines, weather forecasts, and noise, as the operator mixes the sounds of several phones.
Part 2 (variant a):
If the listener remains on the phone for a certain length of time, they will suddenly also be confronted with a voice. The voice will be of another person who, having been called, will engage in a conversation with the listener. The speaker will be in another time zone (country), and will be a reluctant participant; that is, he or she will not know the structure of the piece. The listener may engage in conversation or not. If he does, he becomes a solo performer for the other people at the party.
Part 2 (variant b):
The speaker will be another listener, so at the party, two solo listeners/performers, in the same room, are connected momentarily through the telephone.
The piece ends when all the people at the party are called.
Post-Fin:
If the listener and/or speaker doesn't answer the phone, the voicemail or answering machine will record the piece, leaving a record for the person to find out next day.
Tokyo, 24 May 2008"

"Mapo de la Spuroj de Yu
written by you nakai
premiered at loop-line, tokyo, 23 January 2009
INSTRUCTIONS
Mapo de la Spuroj de Yu is a solo music performance.

To perform this piece, the following are required:
A: one wireless headphone
B: a long-time delay system
C: one wireless microphone
D: headphone extension cords
E: one speaker-performer
F: several chairs
G: several people sitting on chairs
H: two telephones
I: one interpreter
J: several listeners
1: All sounds occurring within the performance space and time are delayed for the length of three minutes.
2: The delayed sound is played from the speaker’s headphone.
3: This sound from three minute past is used as a map to guide the performance.
4: After the initial three minutes of first mapmaking, all the lights in the venue go out.
5: The performance consists in: a) the reading of this instruction, while, b) moving through the performance space; both of which will create a map of its own.
6: The speaker-performer will also use the people sitting on chairs as instruments by dragging them around one by one.
7: The sound map instructs the performer: a) the volume and timing of sounds to be produced, b) the speed and timing of movement (i.e., the dragging of people/chairs) within the performance space.
8: For every action made, the speaker performer will choose one person sitting on a chair as a microphone. The volume of the sound to be produced is determined according to the distance to the given microphone (reading will therefore include yelling and whispering).
9: The speaker-performer will also choose one audience member as an interpreter and telephone that person during the performance.
10: The assigned interpreter must translate the words heard through the receiver (i.e., the sound map) to a second language.
11: All sounds and therefore all actions generated during the performance must first follow, and then become, the map.
12: The performance ends and lights are turned on when this instruction is read until the end.

Tokyo, 13-23 January 2009."


koncerto no 1.

sinfonio samothraki

No Collective