Running Under Bridges

About

Co-authoring a series of original prints and musical compositions they test the possibilities of images as conductors of sound and sound as a compositional tool for images. By trading their specialist understandings of music and visual art respectively, they explore the possibilities for creative learning and play outside conventional disciplinary boundaries.

MacDonald and Ganter’s process starts with hand drawn 'grids' and photographs that then form the basis for the development of more intricate images that then become graphic scores for musicians to perform and artworks in their own right. The images are developed in many different ways: sometimes they are worked on by MacDonald and Ganter simultaneously in a studio; sometimes through remote collaboration using scanning and digital editing; sometimes in a live setting during rehearsals with musicians. This organic process allows both the music and the visual outcomes to vary each time the score is played, as will be apparent at the live performances punctuating the exhibition.

The exhibition traces the development of MacDonald and Ganter’s collaboration and their changing approach to co-authorship. Their previous work, on the upper floor, includes three graphic scores that were created by Ganter in response to existing music by MacDonald and Marilyn Crispell; the scores then being extended through Ganter’s creation of responsive animations. By contrast, the new works in the lower gallery constitute a series of truly co-authored scores.