parabolic_fountain_music.mov

This electroacoustic music was made in the Fall of 2005 for diffusion over six sculptural parabolic speakers I manufactured (in 1999), installed at U.Va on Jefferson's Lawn. The speakers throw sound in a manner analogous to spotlights, allowing people to move in and out of tight beams of sound. Because this music is destined for parabolic speakers on remote-controlled boats, the themes are aquatic: ducks and loons; pitch contours of the latter driving quirky vocal synthesizers; recordings of streams and oceans. Calming and rambunctious varieties of electronic music are also involved. Much of the material is high in frequency content, to take advantage of the diffusion characteristics of the parabolic speakers. 144 distinct tracks divided into three sets and diffused over six channels, selected at random by a computer ("sample-not-replace"), producing an endless composition formally related to Alexander Calder's mobiles.

In the Spring of 2010, with the help of composers Matthew Burtner and Yuri Spitsyn, I installed the piece in a stream just outside of Charlottesville, recording both video and sound. Aaron Henderson, a visual media artist collaborator, made this video to the synced and re-composed music heard here. This video will be published on DVD titled Agents Against Agency to be released by the EcoSono label in Fall 2010.

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Music

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