Charlemagne Palestine

Comunicato stampa

The solo exhibition Continuity brings together a selection of unique seminal works by Charlemagne Palestine from the early ‘70s hardly ever seen in public.

The entire space of settantaventidue will host the complete selection of Palestine’s Books of Continuity and his unique Spectral Continuum Drone Machine that will be activated live by the artist on the day of the opening and will then drift autonomously in a 2 months long evolving drone concert. A special videowork (and relative soundtrack) was produced by Palestine to accompany the exhibition and escort the viewer/listeners in his world of slowly though permanently evolving sounds and visions.

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In the fertile landscape of the late 1960s American avant-garde, the Spectral Continuum Drone Machine stands as a monumental, albeit elusive, icon of sonic maximalism. Conceived and developed between 1968 and 1972 by Charlemagne Palestine, this custom alternative synthesizer represents a radical departure from traditional Western composition. It was born during a golden era of cross-disciplinary experimentation.

The creation of the machine was greatly accelerated by Palestine's encounters with electronic synthesiser visionaries, notably Don Buchla and Serge Tcherepnin, the latter of whom actively collaborated on designing the drone instrument. Rather than generating transient melodies or rhythmic sequences, the Spectral Continuum Drone Machine was engineered specifically to produce sustained, dense electronic tones that shifted with microscopic slowness. By manipulating electronic oscillators, the device allows Palestine to map out an uninterrupted fabric of sound where distinct overtones, frequencies, and microtonal inflections merge and bloom into an immersive acoustic architecture.

This singular device served as the laboratory for Palestine’s broader philosophy of "body music". The tones generated by the machine are not merely passive backdrop elements; they are designed to physicalise sound, filling the performance space with penetrating resonances that interact dynamically with the room's physical dimensions and the listener's own physiological perception. The hypnotic electronic tapestries crafted on this machine laid the vital conceptual framework for Palestine’s parallel masterworks. Today, the Spectral Continuum Drone Machine is an influential milestone in the history of electronic music. It occupies a rare space where the mathematical approach of early modular synthesis converges seamlessly with the deeply spiritual, trance-inducing ambitions of mid-century sonic research.

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Within the multi-disciplinary cosmos of Charlemagne Palestine, the Books of Continuity are the founding elements of a lifetime practice. Conceived as the physical, graphic counterparts to his legendary auditory experiments in sonic arts, these unique bookworks provide a tangible manifestation of the concept of an uninterrupted, infinite stream of artistic energy.

Far from being conventional literary volumes, the Books of Continuity are meticulously crafted sketchbooks, ledgers, and mixed-media objects that serve as an unyielding playground for Palestine's ecstatic drawings. Using dense ink, vibrant markers, and layers of rich textures, Palestine populates these pages with repetitive, trance-inducing patterns and singular, unbroken lines and glowing colours. Just as his iconic Spectral Continuum Drone Machine layers frequencies to evoke overwhelming waves of overtones, his drawings stack lines and colours to create a profound visual resonance.

They function simultaneously as graphic scores, intimate diaries, and visual altars, trapping the artist's intense performative energy between their bound pages.

The Books of Continuity are a masterpiece example of how the mid-century avant-garde dismantled the boundaries between sound and sight, offering a rare window into an artistic practice that views all creative output as a single, everlasting drone. They were last exposed to public in 1977 at Franklin Furnace in NY.

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Charlemagne Palestine will be present at the opening of the exhibition and will meet the public after having launched, live, a drone that will play in settantaventidue throughout the length of the entire show

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous collaboration of Charlemagne Palestine and Aude Stocklet