I Now Prefer Grey Skies | Zeichnung | Notation

MICHAEL RENÉ SELL

I NOW PREFER GREY SKIES (2009- 2016)

Notation

Zeichnung

2017

I NOW PREFER GREY SKIES is an alternative notation system mapping US drone strikes on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen in 2017 - 2021. The data is collected by the Office of Investigative Journalism and is publicly available on their website. Based on this data, Michael René Sell has developed a drawing system that makes the attacks playable for different orchestrations. Sell‘s interest in visualizing and setting to music processes and conditions that in themselves carry no sound or are not audible in Western culture manifests itself in this work as well.

Through the quote:

„I NO LONGER LOVE BLUE SKIES, I NOW PREFER GREY SKIES, THE DRONES DON‘T FLY WHEN THE SKIES ARE GREY!“

by a 14-year-old boy from Pakistan, Sell became aware of the drone war. The fact that the inhabitants of the areas bombed by drones develop an ear for the sound of the drones over time - it is a whirring sound that normally blends imperceptibly into the everyday soundscape - was the trigger for Sell to transfer this sound into an artistic context and thus make it receivable in the West as well.

The two worlds, terror on the one hand and the cool, functional organisation of the attacks on the other, also confront each other aesthetically in the work in the form of sound and installation. The scores are a mixture of calendar and statistics. Precise, carefully and systematically laid out. Parameters such as rhythm, beat, speed, pitch and instrumentation are not fixed. Rather, the mood and the way of interpreting the work emerges through the collaboration of the musicians and their engagement with the theme.