A Short History of Decay, an ongoing performance project by Billy Bultheel that explores collapse as both a sonic and political condition. Structured across multiple chapters, the project unfolds through a hybrid of concert, sculpture, and text, centred around a monumental pulpit-like tower installation.
A Short History of Decay, draws inspiration from Romanian existentialist Emil M. Cioran’s 1949 book of the same title, which is a collection of bleak yet poignant aphorisms on topics like fanaticism, religion, music, and the nature of progress. Cioran’s work, written in the grim aftermath of WWII, resonates as a critique of fascism, idolization, and the chaotic potentials of human nature. For Bultheel, these thematics undergird the symbolics that the work, and his oeuvre at large, puts into play.
Parallel to this, Bultheel’s title also nods to his unique instrument-building practice, which integrates resonators found in the walls of medieval churches. For this piece, he re-appropriates these historical psycho-acoustical relics that have regulated and modified reverb, resonance and decay.
