Due to my great interest in classical music, I have been drawn to incorporate this traditional form of music in my work. I am especially fascinated by the violin, not only by the beauty of its tonal sound and range, but also by the elegance and visual aesthetics of its form. In Sonata for Violin and Hammer, I have explored ways of presenting a violin, visually and audibly, in an installation space, encouraging the viewer to perceive this classical instrument in an aesthetically and artistically stimulating way.

Through the destruction and then altered reassembly of the instrument itself as well as its sound, I intend to create a sense of estrangement; I would like the audience to experience this classical instrument and its traditional music in an unconventional way, and gain new insight into its potentiality. By creating this unfamiliar presentation of the violin, I want the viewers to be able to estrange themselves from their preconceptions of the instrument; I hope to create a new recognition of the possibilities of this “old fashioned” style, and provide the audience with a suggestion of ulterior uses of the instrument, questioning or even negating the stereotype, and giving the violin new meaning.

For the sound element of the piece, I have used the real time (about 1:30 min) of the process of destroying the violin and have laid it over the same amount of time of Bach’s Ciaccona from his Partita No.2 in D minor for solo violin. I have then cut up and rearranged the sonata as counterpoint to the smashes of the instrument, creating a disassembled sonata, determined by the timing of the destruction process.

I have furthermore explored an alternative form of visual notating and scoring, which graphically represents the shattered violin. I composed this by covering the back wall with blank manuscript paper, and then tracing around the cast shadows of the shattered violin. This leaves a permanent imprint of the piece; like a musical score. It furthermore links to my idea of estrangement in the sense that the shape of the disassembled violin is extracted and represented separately from the instrument itself. The outlined shadow illustrates the distinctive form of the violin’s reassembly, and creates an alternative way of presenting the abstraction of its original structure.