Rite is a time-based artwork by Toine Horvers in which singing voices, architectural space and the cycle of natural light fuse together.
In his performances, artist Toine Horvers has always had a preference for ritualistic form-elements: repetitions, patterns, circles and lines. He likes to refer to cyclical movements, like to changes in light during the course of a day. Next to this he likes to work with the voice as a medium to articulate time and space. He became interested in Gregorian music which is, from the perspective of religious tradition, indissolubly connected to light, space and time.
The books of Georges Duby made Toine Horvers aware of the relation between rituals and his own time and space pieces. Duby writes about the meditative, time neutralizing, workings of the prayer time cycles of monks, expressed in prayer, song and bell ringing:

“The life of prayer brought with it an uninterrupted experience of cosmic time. By conforming to its circular rhythm, by withdrawing from any disruptive coincidence, the monastic community already lived in eternity: they had, in reality, conquered death.”
From The Age of the Cathedrals. Georges Duby, 1976.

“The church service is, according to Bernardus, a memoria futurorum, a calling to memory of the things that are to come, through a strict order, the movement analogous to that of the stars.”
From Bernardus van Clairvaux and Cistercian Art. Georges Duby, 1979.

The form of Rite is based on the cycle of light in a twenty-four hour period and is performed in a space that is sensitive to light and sound. In the course of the day, at five set times and for an hour long, a song is sung by singers standing spread out through the space.
The five phases of light: night, dawn, daylight, dusk and night, are attuned to the times of sunrise and sunset on the day in which light and dark are in balance, 20th/21st March/ September. A melody with a distinctive character is chosen for each phase. In addition to these character differences, the atmosphere of each session is determined by the time of day and therefore the amount of light that enters the space.
Each singer, or group of singers, starts to sing the same melody at a different time and keeps repeating it for an extended period. The overlapping produces patterns of sound in which the melody can still be recognised, but it also starts to live a life of its own. Also thanks to the acoustics of the space, the singing fuses together into a spatial sound texture, that forms a connection to the conditions of light. Through the individual timing, the exchange of voices and the influence of the duration and the weather, both the sound and light are continually subject to movement.
Through the autonomous character – there isn’t any structure or development that has to be followed – the work manifests itself as a sculpture or installation. Visitors have, because of this, the freedom to move around the space and to choose whether to stay or go.

Rite 1 1994 convent garden of the Carmelite Sisters, Veghel.
As a contribution to a sculpture exhibition in the convent garden, Toine Horvers asked the sisters if their bronze Angelus bell could hang in one of the trees of the monumental line of Plane-trees in the garden. During the two months of the exhibition sister Venantia rang the Angelus bell there daily at 12 o’clock.

Study for Rite 2 1994 Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam.
Sound-installation in the former chapel of the Carmelite sisters. Endless tapes on seven cassette players played the same Gregorian chant, that started to more or less randomly overlap itself due to the irregular speeds of the cassette players.

Rite 2 1997 Cacaofabriek Helmond / Hooglandse Kerk Leiden.
Five Gregorian chants, chosen for a certain daylight situation because of their musical form, were repeatedly sung by male voices during the five phases of daylight. In Leiden by five baritones led by Maarten Michielsen, in Helmond by seven male members of the Helmond Chamber Choir led by Hans Kronenburg.

Rite 2 2005 Festival of Traces, De Fabriek Eindhoven / Lokaal 01 Breda.
My meeting with the Chamber Choir Cluster Voices and artistic director Romain Bischoff in 2005, was the reason to enrich the colour and sound texture of Gregorian chants with the voices of women. This new version of Rite 2 was performed at the Festival of Traces by 5 men and 5 women in a strict system of alternation.

Rite 3 2009 De Laurenskerk Rotterdam
The biggest change of Rite 3 is the choice of having the cluster of five songs written by a composer. Joop Voorn wrote five melodies to lyrics by Dick van Teylingen. This time the songs are performed by singers from the Rotterdam’s chamber choir Cappella Gabrieli.
In the monumental space of the Laurens Church, the sound-direction of choir conductor Maarten Michielsen is very important.

year	1994 - 2009
date	various
location	various