Fish Factory Iceland

Research question

What happens when the music a composer imagines begins to exceed the abilities of the performer who must realise it?

The residency explores this distance as a possible starting point for new forms of composition, performance and production.

Starting point

The project grew from returning to the piano after a period away. This return is an opportunity to observe what has changed and what becomes possible when the musician returning is no longer the same person.

Lines of enquiry

The research will develop around several open areas:

• the relationship between composition and performance;
• body, technique and limits;
• the piano as an instrument and as sound material;
• recording as a compositional tool;
• technology as an extension, memory or counterpoint to the performer;
• translating a narrative into a musical experience;
• the relationship between the written work, recording and performance.

Method

The residency will combine periods of composition, improvisation, sound experimentation, listening, documentation and revision.

The first stage will prioritise research over finished pieces. Materials may be discarded, transformed or later become part of a larger work.

The process must remain open enough for the residency itself to change the project’s initial direction.

Outcome

The artistic outcome is not yet defined as a single form.

The research aims to develop a work that can exist in several states:

recording, as a recorded realisation;
score, as a written core that can be shared with others;
performance, as a version performed by Héctor Muñoz using piano, electronics and sound material developed during the process.

The relationship between these forms will itself be part of the research.

Documentation

The process will be documented through audio and video recordings, photographs, working notebooks, intermediate musical materials and regular reflections.

Documentation will provide a way to observe how the work changes during the residency and which decisions reshape the process.

Connections

Fish Factory continues questions already present in Late Sessions Project — returning to the piano, reducing judgement and seeking a more direct relationship with the instrument — while opening the research to a broader field.