Collision Mandala: Zugunruhe (2022)
"A state of turbulence emerging from the laminar flow of narrow existence" from Glass Canyon Ensemble
Glass Canyon Ensemble
"Zugunruhe"
Collision Theory (2022)
Amalgam
Now available from music.amalgamusic.org/album/collision-theory
Rob Frye - compositions, woodwinds
Satya - compositions, voice, words
Nick Alvarez - drums, percussion
Max Beckman - bass
Oli Harris - cello
Ben Lamar Gay - flugelhorn
Daniel Chamberlin - Collision Mandala videos
Alex Inglizian - recording engineer
Bill Harris - mastering engineer
"Zugunruhe" is the second Collision Mandala video work to accompany Glass Canyon Ensemble's 2022 Collision Theory album. Caged birds are compelled to “migratory restlessness”, termed as Zugunruhe. A state of turbulence emerging from the laminar flow of narrow existence, a longing to take wing, an inexplicable, irresistible movement within the body. Turbulence has its patterns of chaos and reason, it isn’t all random. And then all settles as naturally as the turbulence began, back into the groove, the pipe, the walls of the cage.
Each Collision Mandala is made entirely from Rob Frye's photographs of window-strikes, migratory birds who met their end against Chicago's glass canyon walls. I collaged pieces of each bird together into hybrid forms, which are then duplicated into the rotating shapes you see here. Each video includes scores of layered images that fade in and out of focus, moving in time with the music. "Zugunruhe" focuses on the claws of the three birds we see at the beginning and end of the video. The background is also composed from close-up, blurred images of the three birds. While the effect is similar to that of computer-generated visualizers, each piece in this video is arranged by (digitally-assisted) hand. The Collision Mandala series is a memorial to these creatures: slow-moving, hyper-saturated shrines commemorating their lives and sudden deaths.
Thanks to Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, Experimental Sound Studio, MoSI and The Institute for Bird Populations.
This project was partially funded by a grant from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artist Program.
PREVIOUSLY:
A Collision Mandala for “EeOhLay”
More details here:
Listen for a special Collision Theory episode of Inter-Dimensional Music next week. Our “heavy mellow meditation” broadcast has been on hold while we’ve been producing these video works, and we appreciate your patience! You can catch this week’s ID Music Flashbacc to February 2021 all weekend long on the actual airwaves of 99.1FM WQRT Indianapolis, Marfa Public Radio in Far West Texas, and LOOKOUT FM across the Los Angeles Basin.
You can also find 183 streaming episodes in the Mixcloud archive, and select programs are available for download in back issues of this newsletter.
Thanks for reading and watching!
DC
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