COMPEL Omeka Dev

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  • Originally released on the 2000 compilation Owasso Night Atlas, Sylvian's Wood (1996-98) convolves the voices and music of many 1980s pop singers.
  • What is the voice inside the machine? While computers perform tasks that extend the abilities of our own minds, they increasingly act as independent entities. Synapse_circuit serves not as a direct analogy between these two ideas, but rather as a symbol of human-machine interaction. The computer augments the percussionist’s performance, and improvises sounds based on his or her playing using algorithmic processes in Pure Data. The percussion performance consists of glasses, bottles, and a bowl, which the performer hits, scrapes, blows and sings into. All sounds produced by the computer are derived from the real time performance. Both human and machine performers work from a score, but listen and respond to the performance of the other. Synapses and circuits – human and computer – together find the music inside the machine. This work honors the complexity both of the human mind and its digital counterpart, taking us from wonder, to discovery, to celebration.

    Score and Pd patch available at www.vidiksis.com.

  • Composed using the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer at the Thayer School of Engineering.
  • 2-, 4-, & 8-channel TimeLines available
  • System Test (fire and ice), which primarily uses my recordings of Jacob’s ladders, ice melting, and papers sliding against each other as the sources, is a rather dramatic piece, which I attribute to the dynamic/dramatic character of the Jacob’s ladder. There is such intensity in the discharges, accompanied by wonderful sizzling, hissing, crackling sounds, and powerful low frequencies—danger is always present. The sources are convolved, stretched, granulated, equalized, and further processed many times over, then whirled into this intense piece.

    The visual component for this work uses four electroluminescent wired “imagers” in a very dark presentation space.

  • This piece was dedicated to Szilárd Benes

    Premiered June 23rd 2015 in Graz, Austria.
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