Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Program for MUTIOC 7pm - Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011

Program for MUTIOC 7pm - Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011


The Art of Noise of Cartoons (2011) - David Medine
(video and surround sound)

Omphalos (2008)         - Kerry Besharse
(surround sound)

Suburban Review:  1/8/2011, 4:45 - 5:50 pm (2011)
- Joachim Gossmann
(video and surround sound)

Change in the Summation (2007) - Jason Bolte
(surround sound)

Yet Another Allegiance  (2011)         - Rick Snow
(live video and surround sound)


Notes About the Program:

David Medine's The Art of Noise of Cartoons ('Backbeat' vs 'Freeze Frame')(2011) is an alternative way to look at a classic cartoon duo. 

(ALERT: skip this paragraph if you are not interested in technical matters!)
The engine of this visualization is a search algorithm that finds frames of audio from the cartoon soundtrack that are the most similar sounding (according to the computer) to frames of audio from the actual sound that you hear ('Backbeat' by The Art of Noise). These audio frames are cross-referenced against the corresponding video from the cartoon and begin playback when a percussive attack is perceived. 

Roadrunner cartoons have a very, very simple narrative. This makes scrambling the temporal events easily successful from a story-telling point of view. The ever optimistic, humanely expressive Coyote is continually foiled by the relentless machine-like Roadrunner. This is a touching tale of relentless hope and frustrated desire that we can all identify with. Plus, the 'toon physics that we see in the Roadrunner/Coyote saga are some of the best in the literature.
About Omphalos (2008) Kari Besharse writes:
In Greek, the word omphalos means "navel," but also means the center of the world. According to the ancient Greeks, Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world. To mark the central point, a stone monument was placed at the oracle in Delphi. James Joyce also references the omphalos several times in the novel, Ulysses.

From these layered meanings, the idea of a center point was translated into personal terms. In my piece, Omphalos represents a search for mental peace and the connection between outer and inner worlds. The work is in the form of a journey from the far reaches of the universe, through the dissonant, active earth with its traffic and noise, into the soul, where hopefully one can find peace.  However, a cognitive dissonance that exists between outer and inner worlds remains. There is always an interference pattern, or distortion that makes true inner peace perpetually ambiguous.

“To ourselves . . .  new paganism . . . omphalos.”
- James Joyce, Ulysses 

Joachim Gossmann's Suburban Review: 1/8/2011, 4:45 - 5:50 pm (2011) offers suggestively presented panoramas from the Thornton Hospital parking lot. The camera is at rest in this overlooked transitory space, a place usually visited only briefly while on the way somewhere else. Gossmann's video asks questions about the nature of this space as a permanent and often overlooked part of our landscape. Perhaps at its core, it is a study in positive and negative space.

Jason Bolte writes: Change in the Summation (2007) is a study of the continuum between the limits of pitched and noise-based materials, a change in the "spectral summation."  The title also refers to a change in my own compositional practice; an exploration and conscious integration of controlled pitched material into the fabric and structure of the electroacoustic work.  Change in the summation was awarded Second Prize at the 2008 ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Composition Competition, and was selected as a Finalist at the 2007 ETH Zurich Digital Arts Week Stereophonic Soundscape Competition.

In Yet Another Allegiance (2011) Rick Snow performs on an audiovisual instrument.  The instrument offers the performer direct control over a virtual iris represented visually as an opening and closing window and aurally as a direct volume control.  Accompanying each opening window is a collection of pitches and noises represented visually by a 3D analysis of the composite sound using a form of the Lissajous visualization of harmonic relationships.  Psychological and dramatic behaviors and scenes are created, allowed to morph, and then destroyed in this dramatic work.