0.0005 for nine instruments (2020)

"... Humans, on the other hand, may only account for 0.0005% of the total number of life on Earth..."

I Ant mil

An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants, which are blind, are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion.

This small cycle is fatal for individual ants, but meaningless for the entire ant colony. The cycle of individual ant life is stilled in the life of the ant community.

II Ouroboros

For the time of the earth, the group of ants has no individual characteristics but is simply a species that lives on it. A certain ant dies, a certain ant is born, and life and death are constantly alternating. There is no beginning and no end, the end is the beginning, the beginning is the end, time continues to go round forever, and the ant colony always exists. The life of the ant colony, in a constant cycle, stands still in the time of the earth.

III 0.00015 percent

If all the planets in the universe were likened to sand, the Earth would not even be a grain of sand. Human beings have existed for only 0.00015 percent of the age of the universe. Human life is constantly cycling through the Earth, but throughout cosmic time, activity on Earth is close to static.

My inspiration for "Time Vortex" is the work of Gérard Grisey, which describes the perception of time by different species and describes the movement of time in the form of a vortex. Starting from human time as normal time, Gérard Grisey uses different perspectives to see humans, whales, and birds, and uses vortices to express movement, but the movement of humans, whales, and birds in cosmic time is insignificant. Is it possible, then, that these motions are also another form of solidification or stasis? And might solidification also be a form of motion? Human life is constantly cycling on Earth, yet throughout cosmic time, activity on Earth is close to stationary. For the time of the earth, the life of the ant colony, which is constantly cycling, stands still in the time of the earth. A certain ant dies, a certain ant is born, and life and death alternate constantly. There is no beginning and no end, time continues to reincarnate forever, and the ant colony always exists. For the ant colony, the cycle of life of individual ants is close to stationary.

Grisey expresses the vortex of time in different ways, and my way is to think and imagine different universes of time shifting and perceiving each other. This piece is a reflection of my thinking about the universe and the movement of time or the freezing of time.

Premier:

Yidan Chang (Trompet)

Svea Guémy (Flute)

Carlos Cordeiro (Bass Clarinet)

Ziwei Miao (Percussion)

Haru Ueda (Percussion)

Hilda Kunnola (Harp)

Yifan Chen (Piano)

Yang Wang (Violin)

Arisa Hagiwara (Violin)

Friederike Scheunchen (Conduct)

Freiburg, Deutschland