Videos

d was the first piece I wrote with percussionist Doug Nottingham. I took apart piezo buzzers and built them into foam shapes, and included mercury switches so they would automatically turn on and off. Doug tries to follow the placement of the shapes on timpani as directed by the video while improvising with mallets, bow, etc. The projected video is the same as the video Doug watches, except it is variably delayed. The intention here is to make it ambiguous whether Doug is following the computer or the computer is following Doug. There is a funny story about when we traveled to perform the piece at PASIC, which is a bit too long to be told here. Think of buzzers with mercury switches and airport security and you can probably imagine.

Mar 21, 2011

Mince was my first substantial piece made for video. I was interested in making the sound and image equally absorbing. I wanted to treat the 5.1 channels of surround sound as spatially distinct, but sonically similar, to create immersive music. For the video, my main concern was to capture heavily rhythmic images, and not rely on effects to create movement. Click to download/view paper written on cataloging techniques used to generate part of the soundscape.

Mar 20, 2011

Postcard is a piece for chair and computer generated/manipulated image and sound. Video images come from Wells, the place where I bought the chair and lived for five years. The sound is largely synthesized, using techniques such as chaos, and comb-filtered noise. Moving my hands in front and behind the chair controls the video and sound using SoftVNS for motion analysis. SoftVNS allows the definition of regions according to a mask. In this case the regions and mask are defined by a drawing of the parts of the chair.

Mar 19, 2011

2009 version of a piece originally performed in Bristol UK in 2003. This performance was shot at Teatro Caliente in Phoenix, Halloween (hence the costume) 2009. The text is edited from this somewhat famous essay by William Burroughs. Laura Moon narrated the text.

Mar 19, 2011

This piece is based on the prison journals of artist Stephen Dubov. It is for my own live performance, although Andrew May performed the piece for me at the International Computer Music Conference in 2007.

Mar 19, 2011

College Ave plays with the portability of space and time. The background video not only carries a contrasting space and time into the performance space, but directs the musicians. This idea probably came from having performed several silent-movie soundtracks in various groups. For me, in the ideal situation, the musicians’ input can be analyzed to affect the progression of the video. In this case I opted for higher resolution over processing speed, and so the video remains unblemished. The only change in the video is a fade in and red tint, which is a completely obscure reference to Michael Snow’s “Wavelength”. One of my favorite movies.

Mar 19, 2011

In retrospect this looks a little iTunes Visualizer, but there is something enduring about the simplicity. The tune was written with the visual in mind. Analysis of the tune controls parameters of the visualization, namely the vertical offset of a single pixel wide line. The visualization effects are performed in real time. Multiple performances can add more of the human to an otherwise digital land/sound scape.

Mar 19, 2011