INTRA for Cello, Electronics and Lights (2023)

Robbie Bui, Cello

INTRA explores the inner life of the cello, its intersubjective entanglement with performer, and an imagined shared unconscious between Cellist and Cello. What memories, thoughts and desires does the human-material, instrument-performer entanglement hold? The piece seeks to imagine the inner world of a shared human-object intersubjectivity, and animate the Cello as an autonomous “living” subject. INTRA explores agency, absence, and presence within human / more-than-human entanglements and performer / electronic interaction. Co-mingled with the instrument, both the human body and instrumental body share a complex collective unconscious, represented by the shape-shifting shadows cast behind the performer a la the Jungian shadow (a metaphor for the subconscious). INTRA moves between a sea of dreams, memories, thoughts & emotions within this shared psychological space between instrument and performer, meditating on the performative body, the performativity of the Cello as an artifact-object, and the trauma, ecstasy, and dramatism of musical performance and traditional classical pedagogies.

Videography - Allison Evans

Video Editing - Robbi Bui & Ess Whiteley

Sound Recording - Christian Cummings

Mixing & Mastering - Ess Whiteley