JANET CARDIFF: 40 PART MOET

Janet Cardiff: 40 Part Motet (2001)

40 Part Motet by Janet Cardiff is a audio only piece installation but is almost structural too in it's presentation on  a multitude of speakers. 14 minute 40 track immersive contemporary sound installation playing polyphonic choral music written in the mid-1500s by Thomas Tallis.  The installation consists of 40 speakers arranged in a large oval turned inward. Sung in Latin and a cappella by the Salisbury Cathedral Choir, one singer’s voice comes from each speaker. The audience are allowed to move amongst the configuration of speakers to discover what the artist describes as “walking into a piece of music.”

I wrote about the piece in earlier posts when unfortunately I had to do it from reviews and not from being able to experience it myself. However the piece was on exhibition at the Tate Modern

Reviews of the piece include “Achingly beautiful” by the New Yorker and “Transcendent” by the New York Times. Even from the video clip below you can get a sense of the immersive qualities and impact of the piece. I love the way that it is also structural with the 40 speakers and can only guess at the tech needed to create the installation.

As far as installation audio pieces go it is reminiscent of Nam June Paiks early works where in order for video art to be more pallet able to the gallery curators more structural video installations paved the way which combined sculpturesque qualities with the vide art work. The all embracing immersive quality of the piece is also a really interesting idea. Cardiff says ‘I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.’ Sung in Latin, the first line ‘Spem in alium nunquam habui …’ translates as ‘I have never put my hope in any other but in you, O God of Israel’. Although Tallis wrote his music for a Christian setting, Cardiff has shown her audio installation in a variety of spaces, both religious and secular. The artist is interested in the ways in which music can evoke different emotions.



It is these last two points that I will take forward to my piece the immersiveness and the uses of multiple speakers. I want to use multiple tracks of music so could a similar technique be used to move the different music one piece to the next around the room thus directing their focus and attentions and interpretations of the piece.