A Bookmobile for Dreamers
Elizabeth Brown
About this work:
A Meet the Composer Commission, and collaboration with artist Lothar Osterburg. A musical meditation on books, reading, libraries, and culture, inspired by the joy of browsing, 'A Bookmobile for Dreamers' celebrates the imagination as triggered by the printed word. As a bookmobile makes its rounds, we enter a series of books - and are carried away with the leaps, associations and meanderings of the imagination in all its unpredictability. Designed to be as portable as a bookmobile, A Bookmobile for Dreamers can be presented anywhere there is a blank wall and an electrical outlet.
Brown and Osterburg have been collaborating since 2003. Osterburg, who is a sculptor, photographer, printmaker and filmmaker, has created a dreamlike model world using real time video, stop motion animation and some special effects. Brown's theremin sings over an electronic soundscape which she built from transformed field recordings of everyday sounds, and she uses the theremin's spatial playing technique to interact with the virtual world of the video projection.
Year composed: 2011
Duration: 00:40:00
Ensemble type: Electronic Instruments and Sound Sources:Prerecorded Sound and Live Instrument(s)
Instrumentation: 1 Prerecorded Sound (Tape/CD/Other), ,1 Theremin soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: Theremin, prerecorded sound, and video: prerecorded sound runs from video.