Thank you everyone for the magical experience at SOM ILD OG VAND on Kulturnatten – October 11th 2024 – at the B&W Halls.
The spatial work SOM ILD OG VAND (‘Like Fire and Water’) was written by Gunner Møller Pedersen in 1986, mixing electronic and acoustic sounds.
SOM ILD OG VAND was reinterpreted in an installation-based and site-specific production on Kulturnatten in a collaboration between the light and sound collective Båll & Brand, Strøm, and The Royal Danish Theatre.
The beautiful reel-to-reel eight-track tape machine in the laser cone by the entrance was hand-built for Svend Asmussen (the world-famous violinist and jazz musician) in 1968 by Lyrec in Lyngby.
Gunner Møller Pedersen bought the machine from Asmussen in the 1970s and had it rebuilt so that he could go touring with it. The original was simply too heavy to bring on tours: 100 kilos.
The multi-channel sound set-up with four speaker towers immersed the visitors in the soundscape of the music, moving from the active and extrovert world of fire to the calmer and more peaceful world of water.
The blue circular light projection on the containers were made by water from the Vatnajökull glacier mixed with crude oil from an oil field in the North Sea, black volcanic sand from Iceland and extract of blue cornflower from Denmark. The red light projection represented fire: Volcanic sand and burnt material from Copenhagen fires.
This new production of SOM ILD OG VAND is part of the ongoing Strøm project Lydskatten, rescuing and disseminating the history of Danish electronic music.
