Getting from A to B?
“The problem with answering this in any cohesive way is that I don't feel like I have any good general themes guiding the causal relationships in my music. Part of my problem is my general feeling toward my relationship with my compositions. When I make music, I don't, and never have, felt like a "composer". The feeling I get is more like that of an archaeologist. Not necessarily in any historic sense, but simply due to the fact that I don't feel like I have ever "created" any music, but more that I have "discovered" it. It's hard for me to justify this stance, because when you get right down to it, it's very easy to prove that I have made music. But in my mind I identify with my finished work as an audience member, the same as I would any other work that I did not have direct influence in creating.
Obviously, though, my aesthetic choices in the synthesis of my music must create some kind of relationship between the parts. But, as I have said before, the primary concern of my aesthetic is a sense of environment throughout the composition. I believe that the best way to conceptualize this is in a Vareseian way. To get right to the point; to a large degree I don't compose in linear time. I project sounds into space that collide, penetrate, and trans mutate. The entirety of my compositions are in transition. Ergo, where is A and where is B?
But, you are right, of course I consciously choose the progression in my pieces, even an act of non-action is an action in itself. So what is my motivation? I think the aesthetic in my music has a lot to do with the disembodiment present in a digital society. What do I mean by this? Well, at the core, the very act of digitization is a disembodiment, as it abstracts information from the physical medium where it used to reside, and makes it transferable to any location. The result is pure abstracted data that is mutable, dynamic, and volatile...and in constant transition. As we transfer more of ourselves into the digital sphere, as we identify to a greater extent with our avatars and other personae, as we place more of ourselves into the network and hive mind; what is lost is a sense of space. Of environment. I believe that sound, as something that is simultaneously physical and ephemeral, is an ideal medium with which to engage this issue. This is what I try to bring to my music, a sense of space, of environment.”
resolution 1
"resolution 1" is an arbitrary label given to one of an infinite series of interactive performance works that focuses on sonic environments. A sound world is defined that is explored throughout the course of the performance. Although each performance of this work differs in its realization in linear time, the space that is viewed through the lens of the performance remains intact.
Of interest to some is the gestural interface that is used as a means for exploring the parameters of the work. The virtual reality glove used performs both the function of setting up a metaphor of spatial discovery and the literal function of making the voyage through myriad sonic parameters possible. However, it should be noted that this tool is a means to an end, and the real space for the listener is in the sound itself, rather than in the context of the performance.