New Work Proposal

SUMMARY

This installation is a room-sized instrument and composition that responds to participants’ positions using sensors and electro-mechanical resonant objects suspended throughout the space. It maps musical queues to a circular grid on the floor; by entering different areas of the grid, corresponding musical events are played on the resonators. The arrangement of these events is based on a permutative system derived from the poetic form Sestina, creating non-repeating sequences along the both axis.

COMPOSITION

PROTOTYPE

4HEADS Artist Residency Governors Island 2022

Above is the first version of the proposed installation. It was a collaboration with Helena Chung, a poet and writer. The circular design of the speaker sculpture inspired her to write a modified Sestina (bottom); while walking clockwise around the sculpture, it played back one Tritina (3 stanzas), counterclockwise it played the other. By changing direction you could mix words from each. Additionally, the motor-driven bells rhythmically played different chords based on your relative angle. Walking in a circle around the room caused it to play a chord progression.

There are a few differences between the prototype and the work proposed:

  1. The physical form would be a series of resonant objects and sensors suspended from the ceiling.
  2. The prototype above uses a combination of recorded audio and electro-mechanical acoustic resonators (orchestral bells). The new work would be purely acoustic and the resonators would likely be hand-made or modified.
  3. The prototype uses lidar to detect directional motion of people in the room to determine which of two recording to play back. The new installation would be based on static location of people in the space; where they stand would determine which compositional elements of the music would be triggered.
  4. The relationship between action and reaction would be made more obvious, placing visual cues on the floor where different musical events are triggered and reworking the sensor implementation for better reactivity.
Work in progress using no digital audio and a different chord progression

Helena’s Sestina, an inspiration for my next composition. https://helenachung.com/