GM Charbonneau. WGM Shahade musical match

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  • GM Charbonneau. WGM Shahade musical match

    I retitled this thread. I'm heading down now, the program has a nice section by Lawrence Day on chance in chess. At the rehearsal last night got to play on the board, it's rised a bit high and will be strange playing with music.

    At 2:30 am we plan on allowing everybody they're 2 minutes on stage, although more time if few players are around. Maybe start some chess960 games to keep in with composer Cage's use of chance.

    Announcement previously posted:
    Reunion 2010 is part of the 5th annual all-night long arts festival, Nuit Blanche starting at 6:57pm on Oct. 2 (www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca).

    The event revisits the chess games between composer John Cage and famous artist Marcel Duchamp and his wife Teeny Duchamp held at Ryerson in 1968 -- one of the biggest crowds in Canadian history to watch a chess game!

    In order to explore the artistic lineage of both Cage and Duchamp, several artists who have knowledge of these two figures have been asked to either perform as chess players or to present related works.

    As in the original performance, it is a musical event that relies on chance, "purposeless play". The basic configuration is a wired
    chess board on stage with each square having a light sensor on it. The moves of the players will trigger a number of live electronic performances by several electronic musicians and artists. The chess position will be filmed by an overhead camera and projected onto a large screen.

    Beyond the artists who will be playing the board, at 10pm there will be a 2-hour game between IM Lawrence Day, Toronto Star and CFC columnist, and IM Alan Savage, chess journalist and Duchamp scholar, and at 5 am between two-time American Women's Chess Champion, WGM Jennifer Shahade (she has written game analyses for Duchamp's matches) and GM Pascal Charbonneau (2002 and 2004 Canadian Champion). These latter two will also play "wine" chess at midnight, where the pieces are different kinds of wine.

    Between 2:30 and 5 am local chess players and audience members will be invited up to make a move on stage, assisted by chessplayers from the Chess Institute of Canada. This is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to use this board and to contribute to a musical event by making a chess move. Depending on the number of interested players, there may be speed games. You may get a chance to play one of the masters. I'm also looking for a couple of volunteers to help escort players up to the board on stage.

    "Not all artists are chess players, but all chess players are artists."
    Marcel Duchamp

  • #2
    Re: GM Charbonneau. WGM Shahade musical match

    Endgame (Coulrophobia), 2010
    Max Streicher - Toronto, Canada


    Vinyl (Recyled Billboards)



    A back alley is negative space, a liminal zone between the architectural order on either side—stage for the shady and dangerous. In Endgame (Coulrophobia)* giant inflatable clown heads are stuck between two buildings high over an alley. The heads are made of vinyl from recycled billboards. Referring to the history of collage as a tool for turning propaganda against itself, the artist has stated: “There is something satisfying in reshaping corporate ads into something whimsical, generous or even scary. Clowns on their own embody a certain tension; we expect them to be funny and yet many people experience them as sinister. The tension here is physical as the heads are held in place by their own internal air pressure. Their squeezed and distorted expressions add to a sense of urgency. It is a situation that invites any number of imaginative narratives. Perhaps they are renegade parade balloons whose joyride has gone tragically wrong. In any case, these happy-go-lucky characters are now pinned in a back alley. While still monumental, they are now vulnerable in a way that invites a kind of empathy, but possibly a guilty empathy, or schadenfreude, fear combined with the pleasing anticipation of a spectacularly destructive end.

    * Fear of clowns.

    Looks interesting, too. All chess GMs are artists, and DuChamp was not one of those.

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