20th Century God is a composition for solo voice and electronics based on the eponymous poem published in 1915 by the Russian futurist Velimir Hlebnikov. The piece is exclusively based on the sounds of the real-time performer’s voice. Hlebnikov, though a Futurist, was not convinced that replacing a pastoral deity with an electrified one improved Man’s situation in the order of things. The doomsday aesthetics, as well as the incantation-like rendering of the text are inspired by the poem itself and it’s imageries of the accelerating urbanization and industrialization of turn-of-the-last-century Russia.
20th Century God was selected for performance at ICMC 2013 in Perth, Australia in August 2013 and for the NYC Electronic Music Festival in June 2014 and has since been performed in Sweden and the UK. |
