In my compositional work with gaming elements, I have found it increasingly necessary to adopt the performers' experiential perspective rather than searching for a certain sound phenomenon for a selected point in time. The question guiding my compositions is thus not which sound event I want to occur exactly when, but rather: how can I create a situation in which the performers are motivated to perform a certain musical act? Thus I compose situations and stimuli rather than sounds. I try to create a situation that on the one hand corresponds to a precise musical idea, without being able to directly shape the sound events that may occur within said situation. On the other hand, the situation provides a number of affordances, which in their entirety aim to create an interesting and stimulating situation for the performers. Thus motivated, the performers' actions convey the intended musical quality.1
Accordingly to his perspective related to top-down and bottom-up processes, Marko Ciciliani declares his compositional flow will start from situations and stimuli, rather than imagining an expected sonic outcome. The cited quote is extracted from the chapter exploring Ciciliani's interpretation of the 3D environment as a musical score, elucidating the journey that culminated in the development of Kilgore, an audiovisual piece crafted for two performers and a game system during 2017/18. Hence, it encapsulates the notion of composing stimuli with the intention of shaping the space within which the performance unfolds, whether it be physical or digital.
In Kilgore, the stage features two performers positioned at the center, sharing both the same perspective and physical space. In the background, the video games they are engaging with are projected. Each performer has their own instrumentation: an electric guitar, drum pads, and two joysticks, through which they interact with the game and its stimuli. The sound is amplified through a quadraphonic PA system. The virtual setting of the video game comprises a 3D landscape depicting the surroundings of a lake within a canyon, with a house situated on an island at the center of the lake. The perspective offered is that of a first-person view, and “although the events taking place in the two games affect each other, each player is moving around in his/her own environment. The two players can never meet.” Their relationship is that of two competing players, therefore considering the overall game perspective as agonistic. “For every assignment there is a winner and a loser and at the end of the piece there is a champion who escapes the collapsing building while the other one is locked inside.”
Kilgore consists of five parts: 1st, 3rd and 5th are performed with the instruments on the stage, while the 2nd and the 4th, which are also longer, are carried out through the game system. 1st, 3rd and 5th are also called PraeLudus, InterPaidia and PostLudus, names that directly refers to Caillois categorization, therefore suggesting a specific behavior to the game.
PreaLudus is the opening section of the performance, consisting of another game piece within itself, creating a sort of a recursive structure. In this part, players take turns performing short musical phrases composed of a random number of 16th notes (with a tempo ranging from quarter = 64 to 82). Ciciliani has devised a complex system to govern the alternation between the two players, who send each other the material to be played. Any mistake in the performance can be signaled by one player to the other using a pedal, which emits an Error Signal, triggering "a short fragment of an old synthetic recording of the Walkürenritt by Richard Wagner." In the second section, the players switch to the joystick and navigate through the territory shown to them, searching for objects that produce sounds with amplitudes based on their distance, aiding them in the process. Then, “six new red objects fall from the sky in relatively short time intervals. The pitches they produce together, once they have come to a halt, form a cluster chord. The task of the performers is the same as before: locate the objects, navigate to them and make them pop by colliding with them. With each pop a new pitch is formed, resulting in a new chord. Now the challenge is to collect altogether 5 objects. Once a player has collected 5 red objects, he/she gains a trophy”. Once again, the composer demonstrates a high level of detail and complexity in the design of this section, emphasizing the overall game setting and its sonic features to achieve the desired balance between performer interaction and outcome. The level of specificity in each task resembles a highly detailed sonification of a game flow, akin to composing a musical score rather than designing a game. It is important to note that these players don't have a narrative or backstory to guide their actions. Why search for red objects? What purpose do they serve? Are they attempting to defeat a formidable adversary, the boss of the red objects? No, such a narrative structure doesn't exist. Players don't complete tasks to attain a specific reward; their attention is also focused on the sound outcome, which guides their actions alongside the gameplay itself.
Once the players have completed all the challenges and tasks, the Interpaidia section begins. Once again, the reference to the French anthropologist suggests that this section will lean more towards improvisation and free, spontaneous exploration. Specifically, the guitarist will use their instrument to approach the amplifier and create feedback, searching for frequencies that align with the background sounds of the video game. This section is brief, showcasing a different approach to sound compared to the previous one.
One could argue that Kilgore is not merely a game piece but rather a standard video game with a soundscape, featuring a specific soundtrack that responds to certain player actions in a predictable and narrative manner. In typical video games, the avatar's movements trigger sounds like footsteps on different surfaces, and encountering a boss initiates an epic musical theme to convey the emotional landscape. While Kilgore prominently features an audiovisual component and its responsiveness resembles that of a real video game, it distinctly separates itself from conventional video game music. Firstly, the musical landscape in Kilgore does not respond in such a predictable manner, which may be alienating to regular gamers. Furthermore, due to the weight of the musical material and its relationship with the avatar, the connection between music and audiovisual elements is reciprocal: the game flow influences the sound production, and vice versa. Additionally, the joysticks in Kilgore do not behave like those in regular video games, as they are equipped with specific functions.
Composition using gaming elements is characterized, in one way or another, of rules according to which the performers act and according to which a technological environment behaves. In most cases, such rules relate to global design decisions. Thus a rule in the example mentioned in the previous section defines that, at a certain stage of the game, an object falls from the sky each time an avatar uses the jump function. This object generates feedback like sounds upon impact. This rule relates to a formal section in which this principle applies and co creates the musical process. This case marks a form of top-down design, as it defines a link between events that plays out regardless of the exact circumstances and details that trigger this function. […] when composing with rules, we often find ourselves confronted with the question of how to influence these subtle musical details.
In one of his Kilgore performances, Ciciliani utilized the Monome drum-pad, the same instrument he employed for his Chemical Etudes and Atomic Etudes. This mention holds significance as the specific instrument is crucial to those compositions. Ciciliani chose the Monome for its exceptional adaptability, converting it from a basic sequencer hardware into a fully-fledged audiovisual instrument seamlessly integrated into the game dynamics. The visual aspect is manifested through geometric shapes that traverse the instrument's 256 toggle buttons, with the aim of “evoke the association of crude designs of early video games”. Moreover, the composer seeks to create deeper synesthetic connections, since he “chose synthesis methods that also match the harshness of the three-in-one sound chips that were typical for those early video games.”
Instructions in this case are rather simple. Ciciliani defined the rule for Chemical Etudes as the requests “to react to the proliferating geometries in order to prevent them from becoming too complex. In order to achieve this, particular buttons have to be pressed with precision and highly accurate timing.” In Kilgore, the performers' success in achieving the challenges allowed them to progress and potentially even exclude one from the final part, if not the winner. It is interesting to note how in this piece, the perspective has changed.
The Chemical Etudes are actually programmed in such a way that the transition to the next part is only initiated after the player has made a certain number of errors.
'Failure' is thus an integral part of the performance and mistakes lead to audiovisual variations that are essential from a compositional point of view. Interpreting the piece means to weigh the balance between successful and unsuccessful actions. This does not necessarily mean that I will make mistakes on purpose, but it does mean, for example, that I will deliberately do riskier things when I feel that a 'mistake' would fit the context, and vice versa.
Although simpler in terms of technology and media aesthetics, Chemical Etudes provides a more responsive environment - therefore engaging the performer in a more stimulating setting, allowing more events to emerge. The visual elements suggest stimuli for performer actions, triggering sounds that, in turn, affect the sound landscape. This interaction between sound and visuals creates a deeply reciprocal relationship. The performer's actions, guided by visual cues, generate sounds that further interact with the visible elements, fostering additional musical interactions.