With a meticulous focus on individual joints and muscles, Anatomical Songbook poses the question of whether music should be categorized exclusively as an auditory phenomenon, i.e. something that must be heard. In Anatomical Songbook there are no instruments that play music, but instead a body that show music.
The work consists of twelve songs, each based on a body part as a musical instrument. With a point of departure in the composer’s musical instructions, the body’s motor functions are experienced through the cinematic gestures as more or less abstract pictorial movements.
Anatomical Songbook has been developed for the Medical Museion in Copenhagen in a collaboration between the composer Jeppe Ernst, video artist Émile Sadria and singer/performer Jakob Bloch Jespersen.
Anatomical Songbook will be shown on 4 screens that are temporarily placed as an integral part of the Medical Museion’s permanent exhibitions. This creates a dialogue between the scientific focus of the exhibitions and the sensuous look of the body in the art films.
Two special art editions of the score will be made available for purchase.
The first comes in a limited edition of 48, and includes the score and a poster of high resolution stills from the videos. The score and poster fold out to the size of an A1 poster (594 × 841mm), and come presented in a low-height A4 cardboard box. Both the score and poster are signed and numbered by the composer.
A second, more exclusive edition of 12, includes the above mentioned score and poster, along with a pair of the underpants featured in the video, as well as the complete collection of 12 videos on a USB stick. As with the first edition, both the score and poster are signed and numbered by the composer and come presented in a low-height A4 cardboard box.
Please join us for the vernissage of the work Anatomisk Sangbog on Tuesday 15 November, 4-5 pm at Medical Museion, Copenhagen. Free entrance.