Rue du Bourg, Saturday 10th of July 2021, DIPS and Alvin Schwaar enter a huge loft located in the old town of Bienne. They prepare to spend a week together behind closed doors to share an experience they have called “Concordance Agreement”. They almost don’t know each other. They met in an ordinary place, exchanged a few words and their phone numbers. The first is a painter, easily evolves in wide spaces and is used to leading large-scale projects blending different expressive genres. His explosive, intimate debut, Wama Vola, perfectly reflects the endemic nature of his character. The second is a professional pianist who graduated from the Basel Conservatoire. He has long evolved next to Malcolm Braff. He is good at improvisation and can almost instinctively feel the vibrations of a space and transform them into sonority. DIPS explains he fell in love with the way Alvin plays: “there is no beginning nor end to his music, he builds a universe”.
The space
The Bourg’Loft, as the lucky tenants lending them their flat call it, is located below the bell tower of the old town of Bienne. The windows facing west give access to a big improvised terrace on the roof of the studio beneath. It is covered with stones and overgrown with weeds. A few rusty chairs and two camping tables stand here and there. It is July, it is hot, and the summer holidays revive the hearts of the Swiss. The murmur of passers-by reinforces the idea that being locked up for eight days will be a special experience. There are no deadlines in this experience, only moments to be seized. However, the compulsive need to measure time in the western world is such that the sound of the church bell will keep them on the quarter-hour. Still, the two have this in common that they are capable of cutting themselves from the world. DIPS and Alvin Schwaar have taken over the premises. The painter took care to protect the floor with insulating canvas and carpets, and the walls with protection plastic to avoid staining the flat. The musician has set up huge work tables to be as free as possible during his future improvisations: it is the first time he has such space to connect all of his machines and electronic instruments.
The relationship
Both are quite discreet in their verbal interactions. Each prepares himself calmly, taking care to leave enough space for the other. Then, slowly, the different tools and materials find their place. In a natural impulse, DIPS and Alvin Schwaar spring into action. They hardly bother to chat. Each on his own, they begin their own rites. The painter walks bare-footed on his canvas. He feels the slightest textures of the different materials as they come into contact with his feet. Alvin Schwaar observes the space. He remains seated as his pulse slows. Both merge into the void.
Dipsean words:
I remember this moment when Alvin juxtaposed layers of metallic sound. I felt transported to an industrial plant, in the middle of the night. I walked through the workshops and tools abandoned for centuries. The artificial light was beautiful and warm coming out of the factory. I was outside as well as in the warehouse. The orange-yellow diffused into the black supposing the lines of the space in which I was. Punctually I clearly saw angular drops of cool neon colours appearing in my landscape. A soul was watching me. I felt its strength. It was huge, making me ridiculously small and inoffensive. It was not generous, but not malignant either. So I started to shake a spray can to get a feel for the place and leave a trace in case I was never to come out again. I turned around the canvas in the imagined landscape, searching for expanding time. I felt good. Little by little, the metallic tinkling fades away and I hear the echo of a voice afar. I have the impression it wants to speak with me. I put my spray can down, pick up paint cans and kneel down on the canvas. I dip my hands in the grey liquids. I spread the colours on the canvas. As I do so, nuances are created. And then this voice comes again. Always more present. I add intensity to my movements. It becomes brutal. I surprise myself accelerating my moves on a surface that becomes almost dry. A bit of blue, a bit of red. Either I fight or I lose myself. It’s as if the voice had taken command of my body. At this moment, I am no longer. Rather, I have become the imagined landscape, the voice and the space in which I am. We are. The magic of Alvin comes to an end and on the palm of my hands I see acrylic and blood.