Koraal
The term KORAAL has in dutch a double meaning: beside the musical term chorale it also means coral. This double meaning can be found in the music as a chorale of electronic voices and a coral as a big living organism which consists of many small parts.
The piece is like a ecology; the parts are different in character and influence each other more or less. Image influences sound, sound influences image. These influences are being translated (and distorted) to the medium of the parts. Rections follow on these influences and these reactions trigger new reactions: it is becoming a living organism.
Shortliving, spontaneous elements are being placed upon bigger, less susceptible layers that cross longer periods of time. The musicians improvise over several layers of precomposed music that consists of digitally manipulated sounds which were altered by electronic effects during the recording. The musicians can now react on music they have made before (and independent of each other) but which has been distorted in such a way that they might not reckognize their own playing anymore.
But besides reacting on the music itself the musicians can also react on the images. An aquarium which contains - besides water - several objects and coloured liquids, is being 'played' live by the visual artist and projected upon a dynamic background which also shows a precomposed movie.
And next to this all there is another interactive link between image and sound: the total sound will be translated by the computer into visual parameters.
So on a conceptual level the parts in sound and image are alike:
the composed electronic sound layers and the movie
the improvisation by the musicians and the manipulation of the aquarium
more detailled:
music:
The four string instruments (violin, viola, cello and contrabass) were recorded. In these sessions the musicians improvised while a contact microphone was connected to electronic effects. The electronic sounds were taken as a point of departure for finding other ways of expression. Because all musicians were playing and recoreded individudally their own personality came through much more clearly and they created their own little sound-ecology.
This material (over four hours!) was used as raw material for a computercomposition. The composer distorted the samples, organised them and created a big arc for the entire piece. This was all mixed down to DVD with surroundsound.
Besides the DVD, which has a closed format, several layers will be played with an open form; the sequence of those layers will not be decided upon beforehand. By using several cdplayers on random function tracks with isolated sounds will be played at random. These sounds will be manipulated more by live electronics. Each performance will be different. This gives the artists more input to react upon.
image:
The four musicians are visible on stage with their instrument. The instrument will be connected to the aquarium by optical fibers. The waterfilled aquarium will projected on a background containing of smaller parts which are in motion. By the movements of the musicians the water will be put in motion and this results in spontaneous visual patterns. Next to the movements objects and coloured liquids will be put in the aquarium. The optical fibers are connected to lightsources with different colours.
The sound is being picked up by a microphone and used as input for MaxDSP. This program translates the sound into several visual parameters (like colour) and 'distorts' the image that is projected.
Text by Danni Felsteiner