Selected Masters Projects

Hum

Hum began when I started to think of my installations as performative, events where audience members could play these closed systems as an instrument, not just play within them.

The system in Hum is as single instrument collectively played by four performers. Each is a sine wave, the frequency of which is controlled by the frequency of their pulse and the level by a hand gesture. The Timbre of the sound is then changed by these variables and the patterns/algorithms they form by plugging themselves into each other using cables and inputs on their belts, with a performer at the end of the pattern plugging into an obelisk at the front of the stage. In this implementation of FM synthesis there is a perpetual drone controlled by the performers - the instrument is played by changing its timbre.

As well as controlling sound, the performers affect generative animations in a projected image as I cue transitions from one graphical scene to the next. A UV flood light is used to illuminate the patterns of cables between performers.

The piece begins with individual solos, then performers solo in pairs and then as a group. The heterodyning during the paired solos is the beginning of a more complex soundscape and varies with the drifting relationship between the performers' heart rates - their movements and heart rates drift in and out of phase with each other and the sound.

The choreography is about the power struggle within this collective creation and began with improvisation to arrive at the final structural framework. The combining frequencies and noise serve as a metaphor for life and creation, the individual frequencies of the performers' pulses coming together to form the collective pulse that feeds the digital creation.

Broken GL

Digital Giclee print series. Generative animations broken to create graphical memory errors.