A Brief Note on The Sine Language Project (Introduction to Cambridge Performance, 20/06/2010)

Duo Between Jeremy Hardingham & David Grundy: Drama Studio, English Faculty, Cambridge, 20th June 2010 (as part of ‘Wrecking Balls’ evening)

The following text was read out by JH to introduce the performance.

This duo is part of something called the ‘Sine Language Project’; this is a provisional title to cover a proposed series of collaborations between myself on electronics, and various other musicians, actors, and other artists. Sine waves are electronic tones which offer ‘pure’, unwavering pitches, not subject to the imperfections of an instrumentalist trying to sustain a pitch. The ‘Sine Language’ title is therefore a fairly crass pun: I’m interested, with regards to this particular ‘project’, in exploring sine-tones, or sine-like tones, generated from a laptop, and this might be said to comprise some sort of ‘language’, or effort at ‘communication’. On the other hand, the music’s possible ‘blankness’ and lack of event might be said to indicate an unwillingness to be ‘emotional’ or ‘communicative’, by some. In any case, there are paradoxes and questions that unfold themselves on the prompting of the title.

The idea behind the ‘project’ is it to collaborate with performers who’ll add something different and unpredictable – even seemingly incompatible – providing new perspectives and forcing new accommodations and meanings within the ‘sine system’. This involves an element of risk, and perhaps of failure: indeed, one might argue that failure, and its risk, is that which makes the work *matter* more than polish or 'success' could.

Some have argued (particularly in relation to theatre) that failure is a necessary condition of the work – that it is bound to fail. On the blog ‘crow: instigated’, one finds the following statement: “theatre communicates the failure to communicate. which is theatre and what theater necessarily fails at in the same instance.” Here, in theory, some intriguing connections spring up between experimental music of the kind which I perform, and experimental theatre, of the kind made by Jeremy. The hope is that this might translate from theory into practice – and that is what we will now attempt to do. DG