Via di San Teodoro 8 (2010)



David Ryan’s film, Via di San Teodoro 8, explores Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi’s (1905-1988) house in the heart of Rome. It investigates different aspects of this house: its spaces, sounds and vistas, and its unique ambience opposite the ancient Roman Forum. It lies somewhere between experimental documentary and the filmic poetic essay, also portraying the early electronic instruments (Ondiolas) on which Scelsi composed and improvised in a rare performance by pianist Oscar Pizzo. Without any dialogue, the film attempts to capture something of what the Hungarian film theorist Bela Balazs alluded to: the possibility of sound and image combining to articulate,
“all that has speech beyond human speech, and speaks to us with the vast conversational powers of life […]”.



HD Video 40 minutes 2010

Director David Ryan

Cinematography: Tim Sidell

Sound: Emanuele Costantini



Tower: a Composition for Two Musicians and Architecture (2012)



Tower explores the relationship between performing improvised music and the space in which it takes place. In this instance, it features two improvisers, Jennifer Allum, violin and Ute Kanngiesser, ‘cello, performing in the medieval tower of St. Augustine in Hackney, London. Ultimately it explores the tension between the film as a document of performance and as a thing, a composition, in itself. Ryan’s interest is in the way film and video can allow us to inhabit performance in a different way, but also asks questions about the structure of both film and music, sound and vision, and how each of these interact.



With introduction by the artist.