The Metaphysics of Notation:
Mark Applebaum

Exhibition Statement

Is it music? This is not the important question. The important question is, is it interesting?

The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a cuneiform tablet that was created at Nippur, Sumer (today’s Iraq) in about 2000 BC. From “shape notes” of the American South to Japanese Yogyakarta, a ladder-like vertical staff allowing notation by dots, musical notation has taken on as many forms as music itself.

In The Metaphysics of Notation, Applebaum expressed a much broader format created with hand-drawn designs, pictographs, and created symbols. There is no intended system of interpretation; there is no inherent set of directions for how to interpret each piece. The absence of instruction invites true improvisation and permits solo flights of creativity.

One goal of this 12 panel graphic score series of musical code, was to demonstrate that visual art and music are equally open to interpretation based on a variety of characteristics the viewer brings to the work. The use of pattern and arrangement of shape add texture through visual design to a musical landscape.

I have a broad definition of music that gives me a lot of space in which to create and gives me permission as an artist to annex other media, visual arts, and theater.” I’m also increasingly interested in absurdity- creating unusual things to see what kind of alchemy results. There’s a ‘don’t-box-me-in’ ethos behind all my work.

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