What Is Man and What Is Guitar? (2021)

Overview

Keith Rowe has spent a lifetime delving into the relationship between sound and physical objects through what he loosely describes as the guitar. “What Is Man And What Is Guitar? Keith Rowe” is a short film that explores the thinking of Keith Rowe and functions as a unique evaluation of agency from an influential artist who happens to be an aging person in the world. The film documents passages of Rowe’s ongoing journey, from playing jazz through early years of poverty in Britain, to exploring the unexplored with the ensemble AMM, to his groundbreaking solo, duo and ensemble work from beneath the small umbrella of fringe music. Across six decades, Rowe’s body of work has functioned as a signal for the parameters, signposts, and permissions for the unorthodox in improvised music.