January 24, 2007
Joe Winter
Fantasie no. 1 for Mobile Pianos
Fantasie no. 1 for Mobile Pianos is a kinetic sound and video installation. Five modified toy pianos circulate the gallery on five elevated wooden tracks. Each piano is equipped with small speakers to play amplified sounds picked up from conductive tape on the tracks. Each piano also contains small motors which intermittently spin to strike the toy pianos' tone bars, adding acoustic elements to the overall soundtrack of the work.
The installation also features five video monitors, which display images of five different real landscapes to compliment the abstract landscape of the wooden tracks. As the pianos begin to move around the gallery, these video landscapes become populated by a seemingly infinite stream of mobile pianos.
Distributed Performance
Distributed Performance takes place in multiple sites throughout a single building. Each site, or 'node,' is comprised of installed speakers, wire, various amplifiers, microphones, and a computer. All nodes are interlinked, both by audio cable and via ethernet. Each computer features the same display: an abstracted map of the space and the nodes within it, through which audio materials flow. When visual representations of audio flow within the spatial boundaries of a particular node, it is sonified there. The performer's presense at a particular node will serve to attract audio material to that location and to slowly organize it into rhythmic structures. Simultaneously, the programming may usurp the performer's control and direct the flow of materials elsewhere. The display may then serve as a map--both to the performer and the audience--to direct the flow of the performance from node to node. More >>
Posted by jo at January 24, 2007 03:57 PM
