robin rimbaud/hans op de beeck: staging silence (original film soundracks)

British artist Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) traverses the experimental terrain between sound and space connecting a bewilderingly diverse array of genres. Since 1991 he has been intensely active in sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings, the albums Mass Observation (EDRM 427CD, 1994), Delivery (1997), and The Garden is Full of Metal (1998) hailed by critics as innovative and inspirational works of contemporary electronic music. Committed to working with cutting edge practitioners he has collaborated with Bryan Ferry, Wayne McGregor, Mike Kelley, Carsten Nicolai, Michael Nyman, Steve McQueen, Laurie Anderson, and Hussein Chalayan, amongst many others. Rimbaud first met Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck at Le Fresnoy Studio national des Arts Contemporains when they were both Visiting Professors in 2012. Op de Beeck lives and works in Brussels, Belgium and creates sculpture, installations, video, photography, animated films, drawing, painting, and writing. His various works show the viewer non-existent, but identifiable places, moments and characters that appear to have been taken from everyday life. The artists found an immediate creative connection, and a year after meeting Staging Silence (2) was completed. In 2019, they returned to the theme and created Staging Silence (3). Each of the films is realized through the same principles, as two pairs of anonymous hands construct and deconstruct fictional interiors and landscapes on a mini film set of just three-square meters in size. The films take the viewer on a visual journey through depopulated, enigmatic and often melancholic, but nonetheless playful, small-scaled places, which are built up and taken down before the eye of the camera. Ranging from hyper-realistic fictional land and cityscapes to absurd, almost surreal, dreamscapes, the various locations are connected by the sense of mystery and melancholy that pervades them. And at every moment Rimbaud's score is amplifying and illustrating these moments, from tragedy to nostalgia, witty to optimistic. Introspective and lyrical, Staging Silence offers listeners a world of mystery and intrigue, held together by nature and time. This is a very humane works experienced at a time when many feel disconnected from the surrounding world. The peculiar silence that permeates this hauntingly beautiful work is very much an illustration of our times, anticipating a future in the past. Staging Silence is an exquisite study in dreamlike abstract ambience, a kaleidoscope of sounds and tones that engage the head and the heart.