Speaker: Yonghwan Kim (MIT)

Bissera V. Pentcheva, Stanford University The Pursuit of Heights: Romanesque Architecture, Aquitanian Notation, and the Office of Sainte-Foy at Conques Presented with the HTC Forum Part of the MIT Fall 2025 Architecture Lecture Series.With rare exceptions medieval art is predominantly studied through the visual and textual, even though it was originally designed to be experienced in the temporal medium of sound: chant, recitation, prayer. In character, medieval art resembles other more recent multi-media art forms such as opera and film. I draw inspiration from the latter, especially in the concept of AudioVision introduced by the composer and film scholar Michel Chion. My work on Hagia Sophia and the interaction of architecture, acoustics, and chant, has helped articulate this new direction of studies in the audiovisuality of premodern art.A few sites offer unique richness of artistic media–architecture, sculpture, music, poetry – that have survived by serendipity but were originally designed to be experienced simultaneously. This medieval archive was meant to double as a repertoire. The monastery of Sainte-Foy at Conques offers one such example: it boasts the ninth-century golden statue of its eponymous saint, which is considered the earliest extant three-dimensional sculpture in the post-Classical Latin West. Its Romanesque church harkens back to the 1040s and together with the relief sculpture of the 1060s-1115 offers the stage for the liturgical performance. Finally and most importantly for this study, the monastery preserves a medieval Office (festal liturgy) designed in the eleventh century at Conques for the patron Sainte-Foy and intended to be performed across a long duration (from vespers on the eve of the feast, throughout the night and then the day of the feast finishing at compline). The Office is transmitted in two medieval MSS (Paris, BnF, MS Lat 1240 and NAL 443) dated to fourth quarter of the eleventh century. Musicologist have largely ignored this medieval repertoire. The project “EnChanted Images” I direct at Stanford University (http: enchantedimages.stanford.edu) has brought this medieval repertoire to the attention of both scholars and performers. Laura Steenberge, a composer and member of the team, has transcribed the Office from the medieval MSS. I had translated the Latin lyrics and have engaged in audiovisual analysis, exploring how the chants and the acoustics of Conques shaped the perception of the saint at Conques.The focus of my talk is on the phenomenon of the pursuit of height. I will trace it in the architecture at Conques that expands the interior volume by building in height; in the hearing of harmonics during the singing of the psalmody; in the development of the Aquitanian music notation (in which the Conques Office is written) that records pitch as height; in the stacking of the sculptural program; and in the melodic design of the chants. I will argue that audiovision activates a series of images in the imagination of the participants which layer over the architectural space and the material objects. These “icons of sound” lack material density and invite us to consider the role of sound in shaping the experience of the metaphysical. In turn, the principle of en-figuring the divine aniconicly through the voice and in the imagination of the participants reveals parallels with Islamic art and invites a dialogue in the study of the two traditions.BioBissera V. Pentcheva is the Victoria and Roger Sant professor of Art at Stanford University. Her innovative work focuses on the interaction of art, architecture, and music in medieval art. She has published three books with Pennsylvania State University Press: Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium, 2006 (received the Nicholas Brown Prize of the Medieval Academy of America, 2010), The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium, 2010, and Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space and Spirit in Byzantium, 2017 (received the 2018 American Academy of Religion Award in excellence in historical studies). She has edited two volumes: Aural Architecture in Byzantium: Music, Acoustics, and Ritual, Ashgate 2018 and Icons of Sound: Architecture, Music and Imagination in Medieval Art, Routledge, Routledge 2020. Her work is informed by anthropology, music, and phenomenology, placing the attention on the changing appearance of objects and architectural spaces. She relies on film to capture this temporal animation stirred by candlelight. Another important strand of her work engages the sonic envelope of the visual--music and acoustics--and employs auralizations that digitally imprint the performance of chant with the acoustic signature of the specific interior for which it was composed. Her current book project explores the art and music of Ste. Foy at Conques. Pentcheva's research has been supported by a number of prestigious fellowships: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2018-2019), J. S. Guggenheim (2017-2018), American Academy in Rome (2017-2018), Mellon New Directions (2010-2012), Humboldt (2006-2009) and a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship (2000-2001).This lecture will be held in person in Long Lounge, 7-429 and streamed online on YouTube.Lectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. HTC Forum events are made possible with the generous support of Thomas Beischer through the Lipstadt-Stieber Fund.

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