Sound Animation, or on the Singing Stone

The starting point for the author’s reflection on sound animation is the Egyptian statue of Memnon, the stone that sang at dawn; at first sight, this appears to be an oxymoron, for stone is an allegory of the inanimate, and yet immortal, while voice is the exact opposite, the fleeting sign of life. This opposition has triggered thinking about the life of stone and about the question of whether stone – not unlike musical instruments – has its own soul or if another life sounds through it. The author touches upon cosmological theories and world mythologies, which describe the world and its origin with musical metaphors, as well as the superstring theory in contemporary physics, according to which the vibrations of superstrings determine the properties of particles and forces in nature. Oscillation, then, is an innate property of all things; hence, man is not only a constructor and animator, but must also listen to things and become an echo of their own sounds. In this relationship, the author finds the line separating classical, mainly industrial, instruments from original musical instruments that originate from the “animation” of materials: in the first case, it is the musician who expresses him- or herself, while in the latter case, it is the object that does so; the former instruments are played by musicians, the latter are animated by them. The writer is the author of musical puppet plays in which set design elements, props and puppets enable visual and theatrical expressiveness as well as the performance of music; therefore, his performances are an indivisible blend of puppet animation and music concerts.