To End, Caruso Sang Figure 1
Notes
To End, Caruso Sang Figure 1 is an interpretation of an artwork by Mark Thomson which depicts Desargue's Configuration in mirror silvering on glass as the lid of a small box. "Desargue's Configuration" (which is a famous geometrical diagram) is an anagram of "To End, Caruso Sang Figure 1". Since the image reflects the user, I imagined the celebrated tenor Enrico Caruso interpreting the box as a kind of graphic score and then, seeing himself reflected in the surface, being obliged to sustain a single note forever. Creating this little loop required a disproprotionate effort. I found a recording of Caruso singing what one critic called an "unwise" high note. I sampled this (and the piano chord that accompanied it) and then used the Fairlight computer to laboriously trace out a filigree of overtones. The resulting sustained sound quickly loses its vocal character and becomes a weird mesh of pitched material, some of it sustained, some of it shifting, accompanied by a repeating distorted piano chord.