Vehicle

Artist Gerhard Marx has grafted two violins, a cello and a double bass onto the body of a motor vehicle. By transferring the delicate constellations of strings and bridges onto the surfaces of a vehicle, he turns the automotive body into resonator box to draw rich, varied and evocative voices from its body. Vehicle is as much about the intangible and emotive qualities of sound as it is about the raw, suggestive materiality of physical objects. It is the overlap of sound and object that drives this project – how does sound affect the way we see? Can we give ‘voice’ to an object and so extract narrative from its body? Marx places these car-doors-turned-instruments in the deft hands of the award winning Dutch Violinist, Diamanda La Berge Dramm and celebrated South African Double Bassist Shane Cooper to explore the varied potential sound-worlds that they draw from it. At times dark and broody, at times gently poetic, the immersive soundscapes of their improvisational interaction promise a mesmerizing and immersive experience to the audience. For the Holland Festival Vehicle will take two forms in theatre Frascati - live performances by Diamanda Dramm and Shane Cooper will be interspersed by an installation version of the project in which the instruments and the automotive lights are combined with a multi-channel video projection featuring pre-recorded prose by poet and travel writer Toast Coetzer written for Vehicle and filmed improvisations by Shane Cooper and legendary South African musician Kyle Shepherd. download the programme book