TONSPUR_display #17 • The Class of Ursula Neugebauer • Piano Concerto for 44 Hands

What happens to a grand piano if nobody can play it? What sounds can a curved, angular object produce? How do long, white and short, black surfaces sound when they are interlocked in rows and columns in a fixed order? What does it mean when white is pitted against black? And, what happens when all of the keys are struck at once?

The Piano Concerto for 44 Hands appears as an image of collective presence where several different gestures merge into a single movement. Here, each hand acts both autonomously and in response to the others. This image reflects our idea of solidarity: Individual efforts can only become a collective force through mutual interdependence.

We regard the Piano Concerto for 44 Hands as one work presented in two locations. The video installation on show at TONSPUR_display is intended as a composition in its own right, while this is only apparent on a visual level. Independently of the video installation, the sound work created for the TONSPUR_passage is also a composition in its own right, whereas it can be understood aurally. It raises questions about how the sounds heard were generated. We are interested here in the potential expansion of a composition through the separation of images and sounds. Bringing the two together imaginatively — making them one — requires the viewers’ active participation. In mentally piecing together images and sounds, they themselves become part of the collective process of individual action and mutual engagement. The posters on display in the TONSPUR_passage depict some of the instruments used in the concert to, serve as a bridge.

The art students in Prof. Ursula Neugebauer’s class at the Berlin University of the Arts, present a performance of a Piano Concerto for 44 Hands. This collaborative piece was conceived in response to the war in Ukraine; through it, we wish to express our idea of solidarity — a solidarity that must be extended to Ukraine.