The Philharmonie Project
(Nielsen: Symphony No. 5)

Exhibition view, PROGRAM, Berlin, 2011 (photographed by David Brandt)

Exhibition view, PROGRAM, Berlin, 2011 (photographed by David Brandt)

2-channel video installation with four-channel sound: 2synchronized projections, architectural structure separating projections, tiered seating, and speakers | 2011 | 43:00

A performance of Carl Nielsenʼs Symphony No. 5 and its filming for broadcast serve as organizing frameworks for The Philharmonie Project (Nielsen: Symphony No. 5). The work features the video production team of the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall as they film a live performance of Nielsen’s symphony. For every Berlin Philharmoniker concert it streams live, the video production team coordinates the movement of six remote cameras, choreographing them to the musical score.

In the gallery, Marsh positions the two videos at either end—or side, recto/verso—of an angled platform that bisects the room on the diagonal. Set on a scaffold, the structure is the design of the architect team June 14 (Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge and Sam Chermayeff). Audiences sitting on the top of the platform gaze down onto Marsh’s video of the Philharmonie team working together as they film the 45-minute performance; on its underside, viewers see her video of the performance in dry run. The soundtrack unifies these elements, broadcasting Nielsen’s Symphony as it is punctuated by voices of the film technicians. The installation brings together two distinct moments that are musically synchronic. Together, they describe an event that is never made visible to us. It is only discernable in terms of its absence; or rather, in terms of the space Marsh defines with her work. 

—Rosemary Heather, “Extra Visible Dimension: Lynne Marsh’s The Philharmonie Project (Nielsen: Symphony No.5),” in exhibition booklet (Berlin: PROGRAM, 2011), n.p.

Credits

  • Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 5 Op. 50:
    Performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by David Zinman on January 15, 2011

  • Appearing:
    Tilo Krause (Director), Matthias Wahle (Camera Operator), Jörg Mohr (Musical Assistant), Friederike Webel (Assistant to Camera)

  • Cinematographer:
    Daniel Sippel

  • Camera:
    Lynne Marsh

  • Sound recording and mix:
    Johannes Krämer

  • Gaffer:
    Tommy Mann

  • Editing:
    Mathieu-Bouchard-Malo and Lynne Marsh

  • Color grading:
    Christoph Manz

  • Production Support:
    Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall Team

  • Funding:
    The Bambi Foundation, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and University of Hertfordshire

Video still

Video still

  • Extra Visible Dimension: Lynne Marsh's The Philharmonie Project (Nielsen: Symphony No. 5)

    Author: Rosemary Heather

    PROGRAM | initiative for art + architecture collaborations, 2012

    PDF
  • Lynne Marsh: PROGRAM

    Author: Pablo Laris

    Frieze d/e, Spring 2012

    PDF
  • 2014

    Sounds — Bilder Hören, Geräusche Sehen

    MEWO Kunsthalle Memmingen

    Memmingen, Germany

    Exhibition

  • 2011

    The Philharmonie Project (Nielsen: Symphony No. 5)

    PROGRAM

    Berlin

    Exhibition