AUGUR (2006-09)
(above) live at Brown University on April 2, 2008
Augur is a computer-centered, sonic performance system. In Augur, I have developed techniques that center on the action of drawing as a performance gesture in conjunction with methods for generating digital sound from graphic patterns stored within the computer. The action of drawing is sensed and mapped to the computational activity of signal processing and arrangement. Drawings as media objects and data sets are recalled and utilized for sound synthesis. The process of interpreting image as sound is the object of the performance. The performer’s action tunes this interpretation, hinging on the activity of recalling, processing, and mixing pairs of images from a vast catalog. The effect is a situation where singularities and chance occurrences manifest through the exploration of how an image can sound. The emphasis here is on the discovery of new sounds and the circumstances that brought them into play, rather than a concrete, ascertainably correct result.
The impetus for this system came from a desire to hand-draw sound, while maintaining this visual element as the performance interface. The intention was to create an idiosyncratic means of visually coding for sound generation, and as such to add a new direction in the area of graphic synthesis. A major design concern has been both audience and performer connection to gestural control, visual interface, and resultant sound. Another concern is that in the implementation of the synthesis techniques, there should be unpredictability that provokes the performer to constantly incorporate invention, effort, risk, and spontaneity. The performer is left to finding a way with the system in order to create an event.
(below) Live at Brown University. April 8, 2008. ~40 minutes
The term graphic synthesis has been proposed to describe the use of images to determine the variables for sound synthesis techniques. An electronic transducer or computer program applies the characteristics of an image towards the creation of sound. As we know it today, audio software generally relies on the manipulation of on-screen graphic images (cursor, dial, slider, waveform, etc.) in order to define synthesis parameters or engage in recording/editing and signal processing activities. However, this is a general use of graphics in which the visual primarily plays the role of interface. In graphic synthesis the image functions as an originating or motivating aspect. There is a strategy applied for creating one out of another.
I propose that historically systems involving the preparation of images for machine-conversion to sound generally fall within two categories, being transduction and translation. The method of transduction is exemplified by synthesized sound techniques in film experimentation (Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Fischinger, Rudolph Pfenninger, Norman McLaren), light organs (Rossiné's Optophonic Piano), and inventions such as Yevgeny Sholpo's Variaphone, Jacques Dudon's Photosonic Instrument, Hugh LeCaine's Spectrogram, and Yevgeny Murzin's ANS Synthesizer. The method of translation has its examples in Iannis Xenakis's UPIC and programs such as Penrose's HyperUpic, Wenger and Speigel's Metasynth, GRM's Acousmographe, and IRCAM's Audiosculpt. Furthermore, the concept of translation can be extended to Daphne Oram's technique and Yasunao Tone's compositional method in Musica Iconologos. The approaches of transduction and translation involve establishing a system of rules that is fixed for converting the energy or meaning of the image into a like energy or meaning in sound. By learning the correlations between the action of drawing and its resultant sound, a language is learned that can be utilized to evoke predictable results. Thus, these processes involve rules that are largely fixed.
(below) Live at Brandeis University. April 11, 2008. ~14 minutes
While both transduction and translation enable my work within Augur, my goal has been to go beyond these categories establishing another guiding philosophy, that of interpretation. In interpretation, the rules that determine sound from image are open, avoiding a fixed determinate. My primary activity as composer is creating the interpreters such that they have many variables accessed in performance. As such the drawings are secondary, though this does not discount what they offer to the process. This is in contrast to the categories of transduction and translation that make the activity of drawing the primary performance or compositional activity. In these non-interpretative categories, the system that renders the drawing or sound is not a place the performer primarily operates. If a transducing or translating system offers variability in its rules, it is such that the rules are adjusted to offer the best rendering of the source image, to better the transfer of the energy or meaning according to the aesthetic inclinations of the user. With interpretation as a dominant principle, the activity is one of activating or bending prepared visual data to uncover hidden or possible sound. Metaphorically, this could be likened to seeing faces in rock formations, animals in the clouds, or answers to questions in the flight of birds. The system’s purpose is to interpolate significance from babble, to create signs from noise. The drawings are opportunities for sound instead of its instructions.
(below) Live in Providence, RI. February 22, 2008. ~18 minutes
Augur was performed:
2008, June 18. House of World Cultures. Berlin, GERMANY.
2008, June 15. House of World Cultures. Berlin, GERMANY.
2008, May 09. White Electric. Providence, Rhode Island.
2008, April 11. Brandeis University. Waltham, Massachusetts.
2008, April 08. Grant Recital Hall, Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island.
2008, April 02. Grant Recital Hall, Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island.
2008, February 21. Narwhal Arms. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, October 26. Elevate Festival. Graz, AUSTRIA.
2007, October 23. K:ITA. Berlin, GERMANY.
2007, October 22. Rote Flora. Hamburg, GERMANY.
2007, October 20. FZW. Dortmund, GERMANY.
2007, October 19. Instants Chavires. Paris, FRANCE.
2007, October 18. Le Marais. Orleans, FRANCE.
2007, October 17. Magasin 4. Brussels, BELGIUM.
2007, October 16. Engine Room. Brighton, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 15. The Red House. Sheffield, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 14. Class A Audio. Liverpool, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 13. Touch Me I’m Sick Festival. Manchester, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 11. Arts Organisation. Nottingham, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 10. Portland Arms. Cambridge, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 09. Barden’s Boudoir. London, UNITED KINGDOM.
2007, October 06. Hasselt, BELGIUM.
2007, October 05. Helbaard. Den Haag, THE NETHERLANDS.
2007, October 04. Occii. Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS.
2007, October 01. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, July 13. Thunderdome. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, June 11. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, May 09. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, April 26. Grant Recital Hall, Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island.
2007, March 16. El Mar de Dios. Zaragoza, SPAIN.
2007, March 15. El Perro. Madrid, SPAIN.
2007, March 14. Sala Castello. Barcelona, SPAIN.
2007, March 12. Nod/Roxy. Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC.
2007, March 08. Technical University of Liberec. Liberec, CZECH REPUBLIC.
2006, November 14. Instants Chavires. Paris, FRANCE.
2006, November 13. Glockenbackwerkstatt. Munich, GERMANY.
2006, November 02. Pussy Cat Lounge. New York, New York.
2006, October 07. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, September 10. Building 13. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, September 01. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, May 03. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, April 22. Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2006, April 13. School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, Massachusetts.
2006, April 12. Troy Street. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, April 11. Goodbye Blue Monday. Brooklyn, New York.
2006, April 08. AS220. Providence, Rhode Island.
2006, February 24. Grow Room. Providence, Rhode Island.