Händelusive All Movements | Hugi Gudmundsson | Nordic Affect | Andri Haflidason

This video was commissioned to accompany the piece 'Händelusive' by the Icelandic composer Hugi Gudmundsson, performed by the Icelandic musical ensemble Nordic Affect. The work consists of 3 distinct movements and videos. The music was inspired by three different themes from Handel's Water Music. These themes were then 'dissolved', elaborated upon and finally woven back together into the final works. An appropriate analogy to this process is to imagine looking at a musical score through rippled water; where in this case the 1st and 3rd movements are more elusive and diffused, and the 2nd is more clear and readable.

The visual material which forms the basis of the videos was all recorded in New York in 2012, as part of a larger project photographing, recording, and documenting the city through photography, video, and sound. This material has been 'mined' here in order to explore these ideas of diffused and dissolved patterns and motifs, the old and the new, order and disorder, in a word; contrasts. It is also an homage to the city, a sort of 'city symphony', inspired in part by films such as "Berlin" by Walther Ruttmann (1927). In the first movement the city 'awakes', light begins to fall through it. In the second, movement intensifies, the city and its attendant life reach a climax. In the third, the symphony of lights turns electric, daylight fades, and the city is left behind.

Händelusive and the 3 accompanying films were premiered at the Airwaves Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland, together with performances by Nordic Affect, on the 1st of November, 2013.

Film & Cinematography: Andri Haflidason (http://andri.haflidason.com)

Music: Händelusive by Hugi Gudmundsson (http://hugigudmundsson.com)

Performed by Nordic Affect (http://nordicaffect.com)

Georgia Browne - traverso

Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir - violin

Guðrún Hrund Harðardóttir - viola

Hanna Loftsdóttir - cello

Guðrún Óskarsdóttir - harpsichord

Conductor: Guðni Franzson

Recorded in the Icelandic Broadcasting Service (RUV) headquarters, Efstaleiti 1 Reykjavik, 8 November 2012.

Producer, recording engineer and editing: Hugi Guðmundsson

Post production and mastering: Valgeir Sigurðsson (Greenhouse Studios)

Händelusive was co-commissioned by the Icelandic Broadcasting Service and Nordic Affect.

Recording available on the CD Djúpsins ró (Calm of the Deep) from smekkleysa.net