This Saturday: A Tale of an Unrealized Computer Opera Unfolds at Triple Canopy

 

Esteemed local arts organization Triple Canopy is always thinking outside the box, from their groundbreaking online publication to readings of "allegedly unreadable" books, and this week they'll treat us to another singular event at their Freeman Street headquarters in Greenpoint.

They describe Thursday's The Tale of the Big Computer (based on Swedish artist Anna Lundh's essay of the same name in Triple Canopy's 13th issue) as a "deluxe reading, performance and silent concert." 

That essay explores the history of The Tale of the Big Computer: A Vision, a 1960s sci-fi novel written by Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Hannes Alfvén under the pen name Olof Johannesson. The novel inspired Swedish composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl's vision of an ambitious and unprecedented "computer opera," which he was unable to realize before dying of a heart attack. Blomdalh left behind only traces of the grand work that he planned to create, such as how the "opera's audio would rely heavily on tape recorders, which would be controlled, in part, by cosmic radiation, producing a different result each night" and how a "synthetic computer voice would be the only 'soloist.'" Lundh gathers together these traces and imagines what might have been if things had happened differently.

To find out how Lundh will translate her fascinating essay in a live setting, head to Triple Canopy's 155 Freeman Street space this Saturday. Doors are at 6 and The Tale of the Big Computer starts at 6:30pm. We're particulary curious about the mysterious "silent concert." 

-- John Ruscher