Experimental Performance
- Title: 20,000 beats under the chest
- Type: Experimental Performance
- Concept and Design: Greg Beller
- With: Stephan Krause – Handpan, Xiao Fu – Hearbeat and Greg Beller – Heartbeat
- Recording: The office for problematic composition
- Duration: 10min
- World Premiere: Blurred Edges Festival, Hamburg, 6 June 2024, facebook event
- Production: The office for problematic composition, The Synekine Project, Stage 2.0, Ligeti Zentrum, Innolab
Heart rate has natural fluctuations that are typically ascribed to autonomic function. Recent evidence suggests that conscious processing can affect the timing of the heartbeat [Conscious processing of narrative stimuli synchronizes heart rate between individuals, Pérez, Pauline et al., Cell Reports, Volume 36, Issue 11, 2021]. We hypothesize that musical stimuli can synchronize fluctuations of heart rate between individuals.
Can the phenomenon of clock sympathy observed by Huygens, capable of synchronizing the 100 metronomes of Ligeti’s symphonic poem if they rest on the same support, move the hearts of those taking part in the same musical story?
The experimental set-up features a musical improvisation of Stephan Krause on the theme of hyper-attention, on an instrument driven by the heartbeats of two members of the audience.
