Tara Rodgers performed jazz piano for several years in NYC, and now makes music with various electronic, acoustic and environmental sound sources. Current projects use scientific and demographic information to render large-scale patterns of living systems in sound. As Analog Tara, she has released recordings on compilations including Source Records/Germany and the Le Tigre Remix. She also publishes Pinknoises.com, a web site about women DJs and sound artists, and has written about electronic and experimental music for publications such as Leonardo Music Journal and Organized Sound. Tara was recently a visiting professor of sound at the Museum School in Boston, and is completing an MFA in Electronic Music at Mills College.
Butterfly Effects
Ensemble Room Patio, behind Music Building, 6-8 p.m.
“Butterfly Effects” is a four-channel composition made of synthesized sounds in SuperCollider, with a generative structure that unfolds unpredictably and slightly differently each time the program is executed. Its structure is derived from behavioral aspects and ecosystem dynamics of migratory monarch butterflies, and is inspired by the butterfly effect concept of chaos theory, which suggests that the flapping of one butterfly’s wings can cause significant changes in how a weather system unfolds over time. Each sound event represents a butterfly behavior (like flying or clustering), or a contextual environmental condition (like wind or sunlight). All sequences of sound events, as well as changes in a particular sound’s quality, result from the interdependence of fluctuating elements in the whole system. This piece is a meditation on how cyclical patterns of sounds can emulate cyclical patterns of existence; how immaterial, informational structures of computer code reference the fragile and ephemeral conditions of survival; and maybe even vice versa.
Flows: 3 of 20 Largest State-to-State Migration Flows, 1995-2000 (Source: US Census Data)
Digital video/stereo audio playback.
Selections from a series of compositions that render patterns of movement from census data in oscillating audiovisual signals. Each sound pulse represents the movement of approximately 83 people. Altogether the sounds in this series reference the state-to-state migrations of 4.6+ million people, many of which were due to economic factors or retirees moving from cold to warmer climates. In the compositions: latitude and longitude coordinates of state capitals determine pitch intervals. Elevation differences between cities generate rhythmic patterns. Directions of pitch intervals illustrate outflow or reverse migration. If pairs of states appeared twice on the list, the most populous cities were substituted for state capitals in the second occurrence. Audio signal is input to video, which is framed using an analog video mixer.