The Philharmonic Society of Orange County

Artist

Commissioned by The University of Illinois Swanlund Initiative for the Performing Arts in the College of Fine and Applied Arts with support from the Office of the Provost; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts; Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008; Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts/ University of California, Davis; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of Florida, Gainesville; Philharmonic Society of Orange County; Miami Performing Arts Center; BAM with funds provided by the Mary Flagler Charitable Trust; the Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund; and UCLA Live/University of California, Los Angeles. Additional support provided by St. Ann’s Warehouse.

Program Notes

Musings on The End Of Cinematics

People have become accustomed to multi-media in the context of music, theater and dance performance. And it’s clear that there’s a comfort zone in knowing what you like and then sprinkling a little media around it to make it seem new. The problem is that this approach prevents a possible integration of the various disciplines into a new art form.

But art and technology don’t usually stay in one place too long. While The End Of Cinematics is driven by the structure of the music, none of the other elements take a back seat to the music. The visual, media and performance elements are completely integrated into the resulting piece creating a kind of self-contained environment.

This can be nerve racking for lovers of one category or the other. This can really be nerve-wracking for the corporate media that watch their stranglehold on culture diminish with each mouse click. But it’s a great time for artists, students, and anyone who didn’t want to be limited by imposed formats.

You can love film and video but you’re not limited to making a film or video in the traditional sense. You can love music but you’re no longer limited to the CD format or any other format restriction.

So if there’s any one thing that I’d like people to take away from seeing The End Of Cinemaitics, it’s that, technology/creatively speaking, the world is your oyster. I set out to make a commentary on the questionable influence of corporate controlled media (using the film industry as but one example) and I ended up offering one (and only one) possibility of an endless future. In other words, if you’re looking for your category you’ve come to the wrong place.

- Mikel Rouse