Putting on my touring musician hat again after some time to play at Cluster in Winnipeg. I’ll be performing my quadraphonic quantumfoam_x(version) project, which made its debut at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto with the title Rückstreuung. Here’s an excerpt from that performance:
As you can see from the video, it started out being about architecture and space. The quadraphonic dissemination is explicitly chosen to allow for the tones to intersect and create rhythms and to allow the listener to discover tones that are located in specific places. Moving from one space to another reveals different sound interactions.
On reflection though, and after further research, I realized a better frame for the psychoacoustics of this work is better expressed using ideas from quantum theory. In this work, multiple sound outcomes exist simultaneously, and the listener encounters particular aural effects that are unique to their position in the sound field. Multiple people are hearing uniquely different things at the same time, aka the “observer effect”. Each moment of focused listening becomes a wave collapse – the transition from quantum possibility into the definite reality of perception.
The project had its genesis at Akademie der Künste during a residency at the Studio for Electroacoustic Music, where I was able to experiment on the venerable Subharchord, one of the few in the world still functioning:
Here’s where I ended up (thanks to Robert Lippok for taking the video):
Since I don’t have a Subharchord (boo) I’m using a Moog Subharmonicon, which uses the same principle of audio synthesis. The “sub” in both those names refers to the fact that instead of overtones from a fundamental pitch (which is what many synths do), these instruments divide the frequency to create subharmonies to the fundamental. Tuning these sub levels results in intersection of tones, and the use of a filter further allows one to shape the quality of the sound.
I’m really looking forward to going back to Winnipeg. I’m playing at a venue that I was at the opening of, the West End Cultural Centre – in fact, I think my mom performed at that opening. I’ve played there many times since in everything from storytelling accompaniment to punk rock concerts, and it’s going to be nice to go home and explore that space with sound.
See you there?
UPDATE: I found this so I’m going to try and build it in Max/MSP. It’ll probably take me a year. ↓
