Music for Solo Performer

A 1969 piece by the composer Alvin Lucier provides both the title and the conceptual starting point for Brady’s sensitively wrought exploration of technologies of care. Brady conceives of her work as a filmic “part-homage, part-sequel” to Lucier’s use of amplified brain waves to generate music.

Drawing upon sources ranging from rehearsals for a Jerry Lewis telethon to an artificially generated voice ordering pizza, the synthetic is itself resynthesised back into a very human form, with the film also serving as a reflection by Brady on the passing of her mother. The resulting swelling of emotion is one in which the disassembly of an obsolete hard drive is marked with as much poignancy as a rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.