Xenakis Matters

A volume edited by Saron Kanach explores the many facets of Iannis Xenakis, who sought to engage, explore, and interrogate the full range of human experience, a much needed attitude in today’s architectural practice.

Sharon Kanach (Ed.), Xenakis Matters: Contexts, Processes, Applications, Pendragon Press, October 2012, 487 pp, USD$39,00

The relationship between architecture and music is as old as both disciplines. And it doesn’t take too long, "googling" these two concepts, to end in a page about Iannis Xenakis, his relationship with Le Corbusier, and the Philips Pavilion. Being so widely published, what does Sharon Kanach’s Xenakis Matters have that makes these issues interesting again? It might be because the volume helps us to understand the crossed paths through space and time between architecture and music, but also mathematics, game theory, and electronic music. Structured along three main lines — Contexts (philosophy), Processes (methods), and Applications (families of solutions) — the book seeks to reinforce the idea of “active knowledge through creativity.”

The three immanent concepts of Past, Present, and Future can be found throughout the book, based on research that goes beyond temporality. Just like music, this research isn’t limited by physical or temporary limits, showing in a very clear way how Xenakis’ influences derive from different sources, such as philosophy, arts and science. Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music and made the study of “the past with absolutely new mental tools” possible, as David Rosenboom points out. Xenakis Matters is indeed a demonstration of the true meaning of Xenakis’ legacy: flipping though its pages, we can find thoughts about several topics and even diverse points of view, from bio-politics to pedagogy. On the latter, Xenakis affirmed “education should be —in the widest sense— an approach to sound, to form in a wider sense, which does not exists yet.” Simultaneously, he wondered “where should music be taught?”, suddenly transforming a conversation about music into a socio-political statement, underlining the importance of teaching art education in the national education system and schools, not in “ghettos” like conservatories.

Xenakis’ use of mathematics in music opened way for applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic and computer music. This approach to open processes and mixing disciplines lead Xenakis to sketch musical ideas on architect’s graph paper. From his drawings emerged, as Carey Lovelace points out, a hyperbolic paraboloid that was used by Le Corbusier in their collaboration for the Philips Pavilion. But for Xenakis, this shape was much more than architecture: it was also the starting point of what would become the Metastaseis orchestral piece. With the kind of case studies presented in this volume, Xenakis’ concepts of technical difficulty that sometimes involve impossibility become clearer; he himself explains that in pieces such as Euryali and Synaphaï, the performer confronts the situation of selecting what to play, because it’s impossible to do everything; as a composer, you are trying to be eternal with perishable things. On this note, it should be added that this is a very simple lesson for life.

There are some passages in the book that are too technical for a non-musician; however, as a whole, it’s good to point out that it can be read with no specific order. Some contributions are narrated in first person — much like a fiction novel, where Xenakis is just another character in the story —, while other chapters are based on conversations and interviews, allowing the reader to juxtapose preconceived ideas of a well known intellectual character with a person who simply loves what he does — and always interested in every field which conforms our daily life, such as culture, economy and politics. It’s good to read this book at this moment and serendipitously relate it with the current — and unfair — situation in Greece and Cyprus. The world in general owes a lot to Greece, although the financial markets and the mass media keep on telling us the opposite; in this context, is important to read the words of Xenakis, who credits his native Greece for the multidisciplinary education he received, based not only in mathematics or music, but in humanities and philosophy. In Music and Architecture, he notes how “my Diatope, for example, is a galactic movement rendered accessible to man. Music, that child of number and sound, eye to eye with the basic laws of the human mind, is quite naturally the most privileged means of expressing the universe’s fundamental abstractions.”

This is the basis of Xenakis Matters, and where its strength lies: different perspectives focused on one same subject matter. From Plato’s cosmology to Le Corbusier’s studio, from Michel Serres to Luke DuBois, passing through a detailed exercise of understanding the graphic sketches of Erikhthon. From technique to the senses and spaces of intimacy, is interesting to revisit Xenakis at this moment. As David Lieberman points out, Xenakis wasn’t bound to specific media or disciplines. Instead, he sought — with the reasoning of synthesis and combinatory practice of an exemplary architect — to engage, explore, and interrogate the full range of human experience, a much needed attitude in today’s architectural practice. Ethel Baraona Pohl (@ethel_baraona)

Xenakis Matters

A volume edited by Saron Kanach explores the many facets of Iannis Xenakis, who sought to engage, explore, and interrogate the full range of human experience, a much needed attitude in today’s architectural practice.

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