Cave Of Rebirth
Cave of Rebirth is a music video for Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan, in which a semi-improvised solo piano performance opens into an infinite fractal universe; as if the music itself is generating the world it inhabits.
“From these mathematical formulas and improv-music, the unending landscapes appear to eventually take on more familiar biological forms, and finally taking us back to the beginning; to a musician playing his piano...”
when music becomes landscape
Tigran Hamasyan begins alone in an empty warehouse, playing. What follows is not a visualization of the music. It is something closer to what the music dreams. Working with fractal animator Julius Horsthuis, Van Leer translated the mathematical patterns inside Hamasyan's compositions into an expanding animated cosmos: landscapes that grow from equations, forms that unfold the way a melody unfolds, structures that seem both ancient and entirely without precedent.
The camera holds Tigran at the centre as the world around him transforms. Concrete walls giving way to infinite geometric terrain, the intimate and the cosmic exchanging places. At the end, the camera turns back 180 degrees and returns: to the pianist, to the piano, to the room. The universe collapses back into a single pair of hands.
The film was created for An Ancient Observer, Tigran Hamasyan's eighth record as solo leader, released on Nonesuch Records; an album that moves between Armenian modal melodies, jazz improvisation, odd time signatures, and polyrhythmic structures in ways that resist any single category.
live at Cité de la Musique, Paris
An earlier collaboration brought Van Leer and Hamasyan together for the live stage at Jazz à la Villette festival in Paris. A performance of the album Shadow Theater, broadcast by ARTE on their cultural channels.
For this work, Van Leer developed a live visual system built from spy-cams positioned directly on the instruments, capturing the musicians at close range. The movement of fingers on keys, the vibration of strings, the physical intensity of playing. This footage was processed in real time and projected across a wide stage screen, turning the physicality of the performance into an ever-shifting scenography. The music did not have a backdrop. The backdrop was made of the music itself.
On stage alongside Hamasyan: Areni Agbabian (voice), Nate Wood (drums), Ben Wendel (saxophone), and Sam Minaie (bass).
“Evolving between electrical and acoustic modes of expression, Tigran Hamasyan uses unusual instruments such as duduk, shvi, and zurna. His powerful improvisations, mixing jazz and Armenian folklore, give rise to music characterized by its originality and its desire to free itself from the usual rhythmic signatures.”
credits
| Direction | |
| Director | Ruben Van Leer |
| Music | |
| Music by | Tigran Hamasyan |
| Fractal Animation | Julius Horsthuis |
| Camera | |
| Cinematography | Daan Bukman |
| Focus Puller | Kasper Stegeman |
| Gaffer | Marcel Brugman |
| Best Boy | Thomas Born |
| Grip | Bjorn Schumacher |
| Art & Styling | |
| Stylist | Imruh Asha |
| Make-up | Faisa Sontodimedjo |
| Post-Production | |
| Colorist | Efraim Gons (Hectic Electric) |
| Production | |
| Producer | Philippe Avendaño Vera |
| Produced by | Truth.io |
filmmaker & media-artist
