Compact Forest Proposal
Encyclopedia
Compact Forest Proposal : 5 Studies for "010101", San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2001 is an ambient
Installation
album from British
musician Brian Eno
, released in Feb. 2001.
The music on the album was made for an Installation
- a show featuring music and visuals - that took place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
's "010101: Art in Technological Times" exhibition which opened on March 3, 2001. His piece was titled New Urban Spaces Series #4: "Compact Forest Proposal".
Since then, the museum has acquired the Installation for its permanent collection.
The piece was installed in a dark room, featuring strings of tiny white lights rising to the ceiling from gossamer pods that reminded Eno of "jellyfish", while his music played. "It's an idea for a kind of retreat people can go to in the city". Part of Eno's Quiet Club series of Installations, he described it as a sort of "simulated forest" of the future. He gave it a "deliberately clunky" title "because I want it to be like an architectural submission for a new space."
The CD notes explain
The music can be seen as a "sequel" to his Music for Civic Recovery Centre
album (2000) as it continues to explore variations on the same tracks that were featured there, ie Ikebukuro, from his 1992 album The Shutov Assembly
and Kites II & Kites III from his 1999 album Kite Stories
; this is particularly true on the longest piece. Two different "backdrop" tracks change the mood of the album from its "prequel".
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
Installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
album from British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
musician Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, released in Feb. 2001.
Track listing
- Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 5 - 6:09
- Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 3 - 5:53
- Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 4 - 20:04
- Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 8 - 5:45
- Compact Forest Proposal, Condition 7 - 10:00
Overview
An Opal release, with no catalogue number, this title is only available from EnoShop.The music on the album was made for an Installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
- a show featuring music and visuals - that took place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
's "010101: Art in Technological Times" exhibition which opened on March 3, 2001. His piece was titled New Urban Spaces Series #4: "Compact Forest Proposal".
Since then, the museum has acquired the Installation for its permanent collection.
The piece was installed in a dark room, featuring strings of tiny white lights rising to the ceiling from gossamer pods that reminded Eno of "jellyfish", while his music played. "It's an idea for a kind of retreat people can go to in the city". Part of Eno's Quiet Club series of Installations, he described it as a sort of "simulated forest" of the future. He gave it a "deliberately clunky" title "because I want it to be like an architectural submission for a new space."
The CD notes explain
"There are 10 active CD players in this installation. Each is playing a specially cut CD, a single layer of the total music. The CDs have different numbers of tracks, some of which are silent, and each player is set to play these tracks in random order. The final music is therefore an ever-changing combination, unlikely to exactly repeat itself in any individual user's experience".
"The studies on the CD represent possible conditions of the installation piece (i.e. conditions that it might randomise itself into sometime during the several months that it will play), although there are some elements in the studies that were not finally used in the installation itself".
"My other installation pieces to date have been relatively "steady state" in that they've remained faithful to a specific harmonic palette. In this piece, however, one of the 10 playing CDs carries two quite different harmonic sub-strata. Since these are different tracks on the same single CD, they are never heard together, but alternate with each other. The other elements of the piece float over these backdrops: it's as though the weather changes".
The music can be seen as a "sequel" to his Music for Civic Recovery Centre
Music for Civic Recovery Centre
Music for Civic Recovery Centre is an ambient Installation album from British musician Brian Eno, released in 2000.-Overview:An Opal release, with no catalogue number, this title is only available from EnoShop....
album (2000) as it continues to explore variations on the same tracks that were featured there, ie Ikebukuro, from his 1992 album The Shutov Assembly
The Shutov Assembly
The Shutov Assembly is an ambient album by British musician Brian Eno, released on November 10, 1992 on Warner.-Overview:The album is dedicated to Russian artist Sergei Shutov, and was created as an assembly of tracks for him, as he had mentioned to Eno the difficulty he had of getting Eno's music...
and Kites II & Kites III from his 1999 album Kite Stories
Kite Stories
Kite Stories is an ambient installation album from British musician Brian Eno, released in 1999.-Overview:An Opal release, with no catalogue number, this title is only available from EnoShop....
; this is particularly true on the longest piece. Two different "backdrop" tracks change the mood of the album from its "prequel".
Inspirations
A segment of the album was featured on Fabric 11 (Radio Mix) - Swayzak 3. Birdstance, an album by Bangsplat, was inspired by the album 4 , 5.External links
- Discogs.com entry
- Beep discography entry
- Two reviews of the Installation 6 , 7