sarana

Light controlled ambient piece – recording of an intuitive musical performance.

The ambient piece acted as the musical introduction to an open discussion between photographer Victoria Schultz,  psychoanalyst Heikki Majava and a sound explorer. The topic of the discussion was My Body and I – Synchronic Image, Vision and Sound. The discussion was held on August 13th.

The pitches of the piece were controlled with light dependent resistors. I had built two simple enclosures for the resistors, which I held in my hands. In a slow dance I moved about and explored the light and dark areas of the gallery, Laterna Magica, where the event was held.

Victoria’s photos were on display in the gallery, and I thought that light controlled music would bridge the media and weave the topic together. I had built a light controlled audio device a few years ago, which was perfect for the idea.

It has two oscillators, which can be independently controlled. I connected the stereo out of the device to a laptop, in which a modular sound processing software turned the pitches of the oscillators into synthesizer control messages. The other channel was used for texture and the other had more soloish character.

I wasn’t able to control the sound as much as I desired. In the possible future performances I will use the signal difference between the two resistors as the source of modulation. The difference can be explored via complex mathematical equations or logic analysis for example.

The set from last Sunday is now available for download and listening on archive.org. The set took place at a compact sound art festival, which was held on an island.  The soundscape of the island was turned into synthesizer control messages by using Plogue Bidule modular sound processing software. The software analyzed the spectrum of the soundscape and picked frequencies from it at a certain tempo. The frequencies were then turned into MIDI note information. The notes were replayed by software and hardware synthesizers. The performance was an application of spectral music technique.

I had no role in selecting the notes, and I’m glad I’ve found a way to further diminish my role in the process. I’m exploring the possibilities of working with the frequencies rather than  just 12 note harmonic system. I’m planning to set up a system that would create the intervals automatically from the spectrum. The system would sample dominant frequencies of any material and create an octave using the sampled frequencies as the base. The number and logic of octave divisions could be separately determined.

The island is called Harakka (Magpie). Harakka is inhabitated by birds and most of the smallish island is preserved. The premises were originally build for Finnish army, and the place was used to design and study explosives and related chemistry. The buildings, tunnels and bunkers are now in the use of artists.

The set was performed in the tight wooden auditorium of the main building, which was built in 1929. It’s kind of a place where students and colleagues could have been witnessing the latest achievements of science. In this case a sound surgery took place.

A thirty minutes exploration into the sound of an island.