Alvin Lucier: Nothing Is Real. On Nostalgia.

       In “Nothing Is Real”, a live performance from 2015, Lucier reinvents The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” from 1967, in which he begins his piece with soft, high notes which take a mysterious twist, until he plays the lowest range of keys on the piano, only to leave it to perform a choreography of its own kind.

    After a longer introduction which consists of various ranges in a moderate rhythm, Lucier seemingly tries to tell a story as he plays the familiar chorus by The Beatles. To me, it is a story about nostalgia, which can be consuming in both hesitant and melodic ways. Then, after a short bridge, he repeats the segment from the beginning in a slower rhythm with modified octaves. The bridge as well as the chorus are played again. The camera pans onto his back, and steadily zooms in to disclose the fingers of a beginner as he plays the first segment with even lower octaves. He resumes the performance by rising to place a teapot on the piano and to play with its lid. With this action, Lucier reveals a recording of the piece which he had played until the moment he had risen from the piano. At first, there does not seem to be an audible pattern which would match his movements, thus I assumed that the removal of the lid or the elevation of the teapot in its entirety were both arbitrary as well as another aspect of the performance. However, he appears to release the melody whenever there is a climax of the notes, and he proceeds to raise the entire teapot to mute the chorus, only to place it to its original spot again and to release another set of notes. The second repetition reveals that, in fact, there is a clear pattern in his movements: a choreography.

    Lucier’s performance raises questions about the meaning and the technology behind the scenes of this performance. When I first saw it, I remembered my own tentative hands on the keys and how I would use the forefingers and thumbs to find the right notes, similar to Lucier. A feeling linked to this specific part of the performance is the realization of a memory which I had long forgotten – a nostalgia I did not know I possessed: my Beatles phase. I am only half-joking with this revelation but I am convinced that there is a Beatles song which holds a deep meaning in every heart which has ever enjoyed their discography, be it heart-wrenching or thrilling in other ways. Lucier must have had his reasons to pick this particular song.

    Another, obviously nostalgic element is the teapot itself. Whether Lucier intended to evoke the feeling of nostalgia or not is unclear to me but I would assume that it is intended due to the title which is taken from the lyrics of The Beatles’ song. Nostalgia as a feeling is a wakened, dream-like sensitivity for a lost present. By using the element of learning how to play the piano, capturing a melody from the past and releasing the aforementioned melody through a teapot which is similar to my grandmother’s - who enjoyed The Beatles more than I did - he might as well enclose a reminder: that life is a circle of routines; a circle of joy which my grandmother shared with me; a joy which I attempted to imitate, even if it is deficient, unoriginal but within this circle, nostalgia exists on a metalevel which transcends reality. Ultimately, nothing has to be real, as long as life offers a give and take and a re-give and a re-take of our own as well as the experiences of others and every revisited collective memory.