No Ideas But In Things: The composer Alvin Lucier

A film by Viola Rusche & Hauke Harder

“Don’t ask me what I mean, ask me what I’ve made.” - Alvin Lucier

The American Alvin Lucier is one of the most significant composers of New Music in the 20th century. Being one of the first representatives of live electronic music, he explored in his works the nature and the effect of acoustic sounds and sound phenomena such as resonances, echoes and interferences, with the boundaries between installation, performance, composition and science becoming blurred.

In the present documentary film by Viola Rusche and Hauke Harder, Lucier is shown on concert trips to The Hague and Zug, Switzerland. Starting with performances of early live electronic works of the 1960s and 1970s, and ending with the world premiere of the most recent ensemble piece 'Panorama 2' (2011), the composer examines and comments on his work, granting insight into the beginnings of his pioneering work: his days as founding member of the group of composers Sonic Arts Union (1966–76), his relationships with John Cage and David Tudor, as well as his work at the Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he has been teaching since 1970.

In this documentary, Lucier's best-known piece 'I Am Sitting in a Room' (1970) runs through the film like a golden thread.

Bonus Features:
- Alvin Lucier on: I Am Sitting in a Room
- Further remarks by Alvin Lucier
- Voices of friends and colleagues
97 min | English | Stereo | DVD 9 | NTSC | Country Code: 0