Richard Serra

Music of Verbs arose from a project exploring the idea of making a chain of translations between different art forms at minute sites of intersection. From sculptor Richard Serra’s famous Verb List(1967-68), Jim Aitchison translated selected action-words into extremely short fragments of music, then into a filmed physical ‘performance’ in ink on paper configured as seven blank piano keyboards, then translated from musical score to graphic scores. From Serra’s list the artist chose the following actions, embodied on the film and as graphic scores:

 

To Scatter – To Weave – To Fold – To Suspend – To Bend – To Simplify – To Enclose.