'Statesman. Or How to Sink a Titan' was commisioned by the Royal Academy of Music to be installed in Ambika P3 Gallery in London as an interpretation/response of Gavin Bryars' iconic piece 'The Sinking of The Titanic'. The work was first installed in Ambika P3 the 1st of March 2016 and subsequently installed for six months at The Royal Academy of Music (2016-17)

Brief Context

“Our kingdom is not from this world, musicians say, [then] in what place of nature do we find, like the painter and the sculptor, the prototype of our art?”[1] 

[1] E.T.A. Hoffmann, E.T.A Hoffmann´s Musical Writings: Kreisleriana, The poet and the Composer, Music Criticism, ed. David Charlton, trans. Martyn Clarke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 74, 163-64. Cited in Pierre Schaeffer’s Treatise on Musical Objects. An Essay Across Disciplines. Trans. Christine North and John Dack. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2017). Preface.

As a composer I have always envied the material process of construction of artists – mainly painters and sculptors. Painting a picture or carving a marble block necessarily involves surrounding oneself with colour and caressing the surface of the stone, before even having an idea of what the piece is going to be. In fact, this information could determine, in many cases, the existential course of the work. A clear example of this is found in the material realism[2] of the Italian artist Alberto Burri, who experimented with unorthodox industrial materials like plastic, wood, metal or his distinctive use of burlap sacking. The use of these materials “function as detonators”[3] allowing him such specific procedures as the combustion of the plastic, or the sewing of the sack, generating specific textures, colours and shapes directly related to the chemical alteration of the matter used.

[2] ‘Alberto Burri; Material Realism’, YouTube video, posted by ‘Guggenheim Museum’, 19 October 2015

[3] Cesare Brandi. Alberto Burri (London: Mazzoleni, 2015) 13

Another key position on material possession is found in the work of French artist Olivier de Sagazan, who explains his material process as follows: “Clay is like an extension of the body…I decided to cover myself with all the materials I work with to wear my art on my body, to physically enter my work…”[4]

[4] ‘Olivier de Sagazan – La Nef Des Fous’ YouTube video, posted by ‘Alexandre Degardin’, 4 May 2016,

My own artistic approach subsumes influences of the work shown above, outside a strict musical sense. In “Statesman. Or How to Sink a Titan”, for digital sculpture, flutes and gopichand choir, I modelled the figure of a politician in 3D, using my own body as a reference, which I then texturised and presented as a concrete man. During a process of 4´33´´the figure sinks into the void or the ‘not-being’ due to its own weight, the contemporary Titan’s weight, the extreme difficulty of finding the right balance of things, the thin line that separates illusions from knowledge.

This piece is a material transformation of Plato’s dialogue: Statesman[5], in which he defines the politician as an individual whose function is to provide care for a human community who willingly accepts him. In addition, he develops the definition further, showing a model as an analogy about the art of weaving, also explaining the function of the model itself with extraordinary precision. In the previous dialogue: Sophist[6], Plato makes a similar procedure, using another analogy: the fisherman with his rod, but this time without explaining the model itself. In both procedures Plato expresses the clarity and precision of the political subject or positive philosopher who seeks supreme wisdom, as a royal weaver, against the abstraction of the sophist, who produces illusions and fantasies, sheltered in the darkness of the non-being.

[5] Platón. Diálogos V. Político (Barcelona: Gredos, 2015) 277a-283c.

[6] Platón. Diálogos V. Sofista (Barcelona: Gredos, 2015) 218b-221c.