Fish in Pink Gelatine

Performed installions and staged concert, for clarinettist, bassonist, violist, cellist, and percussionist.

Performed Installations

The performed installations are a set of progressive tasks the performers undertake. In one, dealing with the past, the cellist plays a movement of solo Bach, then folds an origami fish and threads it through the strings, looping this and accumulating fish as the Bach distorts. In another, tank ritual (image above), a single audient lies with their head in a fish tank as the performer moves pebbles on top. Carefully constructed to make an ecology of complimentary activity, the performed installations take place simultaneously and the audience can choose how to move between, or they can snack and chat.

Staged Concert

The second half is a 45-minute concert. Musically, there are three categories of composition: waters, fish, and songs.

The fish are a collection of fully notated solo concert pieces for the performers, composed with focus on the visuality, physicality, spatiality, and instrumental materiality. The sound that comes out seems almost like a byproduct of these other modalities.

In a performance of Fish, the fish are selected from:
• Fish Poem
• The Viscosity of the Sky
• Simpering Propulsion/NO LOCATIONS (for bassoonist)
• Descent (in the Spirit of Catastrophe) (vertical music for cellist)
• Song Through Sand
• Diffrint Fizzicks (horizontal music for cellist)
• Shiny Skeleton (for clarinettist)
• Song Through Sand (for violist with cassette tapes)

The waters are musical textures; materials used to create the aural medium the fish move through, though they appear without fish too.

The waters are selected from:
• Salt
• Waves/Tide
• Currents
• Expanse
• Depth and Pressure
• Surface
• Ice

The songs are selected from:
• Strangers
• Tied to the Moon
• The Thick Now

Performance History

• Run at BATS, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, June 2019
• Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, January 2019
• In-process showing, Te Kōkī—New Zealand School of Music, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, August 2018

If you would like to talk about presenting Fish in Pink Gelatine or just want to know more about the show, please email Elliot.