An event in the new music concert series PLAYGROUND
“My music is in silence.” – Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman’s Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981) is one of his most significant late works, written for cello and piano. The 90-minute composition unfolds through subtle, slowly shifting sound patterns whose repetitions are never identical. Feldman’s principle of crippled symmetry – the logic of imperfect symmetry inspired by the structure of oriental carpets – becomes a metaphor for time, attention, and human imperfection.
Patterns in a Chromatic Field – The Practice of Attention draws on Feldman’s compositional philosophy not as a repetition of sound or image, but as a mode of thinking guided by slowness, micro-variation, and repetition without climax. This approach is transposed into today’s context – the “chromatic field” of screens, notifications, and algorithms – where our attention is continuously fragmented.
How can we remain attentive when sound becomes background noise?
How can we sustain our gaze when it is constantly interrupted?
The work foregrounds the ecology of attention, where attention itself functions as both a field of perception and an instrument.
Producer: Tarp tylos
Curator and Coordinator: Arnas Kmieliauskas
Partners: Sapieha Palace, Šiuolaikinė ausis
Information Partners: LRT Klasika, Vilnius Radio
Funded by: Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality