Ellen Fullman: 'Long String Instrument'

Raw Footage | 9 min | 1984

Like Bertoia and Eastley, Fullman started out as a sculptor, gradually got interested in constructing sound-making objects, and finally graduated to instrument invention. She has dedicated much of her artistic life to the Long String Instrument, a physically imposing device with 53-foot-long strings that takes several days to set up in a performance space. Later incarnations of the Long String Instrument expanded to 100 foot strings. Unlike Mr and Mrs Lasry with the Cristal Baschet, Fulman doesn’t use water to keep her fingers slippery but coats both her hands and the strings with rosin. Waxed up, she strokes the strings between her fingertips, coaxing out gorgeous hovering tones as extended as the filaments themselves. The timbre sometimes recalls the viola or the church organ but the notes are so stretched out it feels almost like a synthesizer sound. In one interview, Fullman described playing the Long String Instrument as “an ecstatic feeling, a floating sensation. Music is bigger than me: there are pitch relationships, shapes of notes beautiful beyond the level of human expression. I like that feeling of being a conduit.” This enjoyably amateurish local news item from an Austin, Texas TV station also showcases another of Fullman’s inventions, a water-drip drum.

- Simon Reynolds