disReassemble Continues

Following the initial research talked about in the previous post, I have made these pieces. This virst piece is something of an aside to the brief of the project but relevant to it none the less. It is an homage to Baldesari's "I will not make anymore boring art" but informed by the content of my project of the moment. It's extremely sketchy and not really of any use without being projected on a larger scale. It is shown here in much abreviated form. Before I'm done with the project, I may go to the trouble of making a better version. I may not.






This second, more sophisticated piece is a sound piece, which I have written some notes on for the benifit of my tutors in college and which follow the link in this post.


Gen11 7Tower.mp3


Building of a "tower" of sound.
A somewhat literal deconstruction / reconstruction of Genesis 11:7.

- Found audio of Hebrew text Gen 11 online.
- Isolated 11:7 by analysing key points of my phonetic interpretation of the original text as well as the verse's relative position within the chapter.

- Using Audacity and Paul's Extreme Strech, produced variations of the verse, manipulating the tempo at various sample rates while maintaining the pitch.



- Imported the slowest rendering at a fairly low sample rate into 8 tracks on Ableton Live; 2 tracks transposed to -24 (semitones); 2 to -12; 2 to -7; 2 left at original pitch.
- Added reverb of various parameters to remove harsh extremes and fill the gaps between sylables - a solid foundation of sound.



- Added next slowest verse with the same variations of pitch and reverb into another 8 tracks.
- Repeated process with next slowest sample.
* Overclocked processer.
* Decided to render smaller chunks at a time, as I would normally do with video.



- Spread 16 tracks over the stereo field, recorded, rendered.
- Repeating this process to create a big sound which can, over the course of the composition, be broken down and the meaning confounded.

-Thus, the first three tracks in the final project / Live Set are actually comprised of forty tracks - forty variations of Genesis 11:7, differing in pitch and tempo, as well as treated with a simple set of reverb effects and spread about the stereo field.



From Here...
it all gets pretty intuitive.
I add more tracks of the verse read without manipulation to the start of the composition - then treat the whole as a live set - adding new samples by keyboard triggers and practicing / editing / re-editing and repeat - until I record a final live mix.
This format lends itself also to performance of the piece as a set of live electronics - coming quite close to downbeat electronica.

Key Composition Points (and how they are achieved)

- "Tower" of sound : As illustrated above.
- "Period Three": All the samples used so far have been slowed down by multiples of 2 - as variables in a stable dynamic system will tend to rotate inside this parameter.
- "Period Three Implies Chaos" -
- After the introduction of the "Period Three" sample, I use grain delay to create the chaos implied by period three.
-Later in the composition, I use midi controlled instruments to break down the passage from legible Hebrew into sylables and phrases and using those sounds as content for regemented beats.
* There is something of a fall when a piece of durational art moves from the transendant to the banal during it's composition.