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Upics, Vacuum
Detaching the sounds from the associations I had attached to them, my first experiment with using database queries would be to use synthesised sound that employed the database sound analysis data. In ‘Vacuum’, a high-amplitude saw wave starts the recording where both the amplitude and frequency contours are driven by analysis data. This repeats and slightly variates by simply setting the thresholds and responsiveness of the synthesis process. Gradually, UPIC-generated textures appear, triggered by conditions met by the initial, leading voice. As the piece unfolds, more chaotic streams are introduced and more of the original UPIC textures attract focus until the end of this first study using the system. The selection therefore works in a double way. First as a gathering force for material that is altered (the saw wave). Second, as a method of retrieving related entries based on what is ongoing.
Audio description: A sound file of Vacuum. Detaching the sounds from the associations I had attached to them, my first experiment with using database queries would be to use synthesised sound that employed the database sound analysis data. In Vacuum, a high-amplitude saw wave starts the recording where both the amplitude and frequency contours are driven by analysis data. This repeats and slightly variates by simply setting the thresholds and responsiveness of the synthesis process. Gradually, UPIC-generated textures appear, triggered by conditions met by the initial, leading voice. As the piece unfolds, more chaotic streams are introduced and more of the original UPIC textures attract focus until the end of this first study using the system. The selection therefore works in a double way. First as a gathering force for material that is altered (the saw wave). Second, as a method of retrieving related entries based on what is ongoing.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620171#tool-3622197 to listen to the audio.
Archived Past
In early 2021, I was working on a series of experimental pieces using experimental approaches to waveform generation. This process involved generating all the sound material and control structures in real-time. No sound would be recorded, everything would be computed and realised on the fly. Although this brought about an interesting aspect of my work, it also highlighted some of its shortcomings. This was causing me some frustration, particularly when it came to sound similarity and choices made for musical development. It seemed as if my natural choices and selected preferences would tend towards a predictable average that would cancel out some of the more lively and exciting aspects of the sounds I was working with. This was particularly highlighted by the fact that my sound-producing algorithms were quite complex and capable of providing a wide range of results. Still, I felt I was not fully taking advantage of that fact and that I was somehow repeating myself.
Rosa Menkman’s project, It Takes More than the Past to Understand and Build the Archive, explores how digital images evolve not simply by their content but through changes in the technological frameworks that display and interpret them. Her earlier work, A Vernacular of File Formats, becomes a case study in this evolution, where image degradation, glitch aesthetics, and historical layering all highlight how static digital files can transform meaning through shifts in context and medium. Her exploration revealed the distinct aesthetic of data organisation within these formats. It also highlights how transformed something so fixed as an image file can become within what appears to be a very static digital medium. Perhaps most importantly, I found her attitude towards the digital works of the past and their unusual evolution particularly interesting.
Upics, Pice
I decided early on to stick to the queries and experiments in a rather raw form. Instead of aiming for a long, completed composition, I opted for a series of smaller, shorter pieces that would each focus on a particular exploration of the archive. Some of the material was based on very percussive envelopes and sharp waveforms that required different kinds of analysis setups. In ‘Pice’ the most varied collection of sounds appears, many driven by and derived from these percussive aspects. Additionally, the piece incorporates the least altered sounds, as the majority of the material remained untouched by any processing methods. What is more elaborated here is the fact of having multiple sounds. The selection queries therefore are responsible for the perceived mosaics of texture and the alternations between sounds. The rough timbral qualities of the percussive events are used as indicators for relating to different queries.
Audio description: A sound file of Pice. I decided, early on, to stick to the queries and experiments in a rather raw form. Instead of aiming for a long, completed composition, I opted for a series of smaller, shorter pieces that would each focus on a particular exploration of the archive. Some of the material was based on highly percussive envelopes and sharp waveforms that required different kinds of analysis setups. In Pice, the most varied collection of sounds appears, many driven by and derived from these percussive aspects. Additionally, the piece incorporates the least altered sounds, as the majority of the material remained untouched by any processing methods. What is more elaborated here is the multiplicity of sounds. The selection queries are responsible for the perceived mosaics of texture and the alternations between sounds. The rough timbral qualities of the percussive events are used as indicators for relating to different queries.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620171#tool-3622230 to listen to the audio.
Shaped Drawings
Between 2006 and 2007, I lived in Paris and studied computer music at the CCMIX Institute based in Romainville in the north of the city. The Institute had an original instance of the UPIC system, a graphical computer system where users draw shapes, waveforms, and modulations on ‘pages’ that form compositions or composed sounds. The system was created by Iannis Xenakis and a team of engineers at the dedicated institutions CEMAMU and later CCMIX. My year there was marked by an extensive use of UPIC, resulting in numerous recordings and hours of experimental material. The system, which was stored in the same space I lived in, became an active part of my life. Its core concept revolves around the idea that every element is a drawing or shape, encompassing aspects like waveforms, pitch, amplitude trajectories, and more. The fact that one starts from a drawing already introduces a certain approach to sound. For example, provoking imagined shapes or gestures. It is also quite hard to draw perfectly straight lines. Therefore, many of the trajectories possess a certain instability that can be particularly audible and effective when it comes to pitch and frequency lines. This also provides a certain richness not easily obtained through other means but something present in many of my recorded outputs.
Many other special attributes of the UPIC have a strong impact on the sonic results. For example, since lines relate to pitch movement, having several lines occupying the same space will create chords and clustered sonorities that are frequently dissonant and different from other computer music systems where the ratio is frequently symmetrical by design. Importing wavetables as drawings from recorded sounds can also offer plenty of possibilities for timbral variation, especially since they can be edited (by drawing) and made to control everything else a drawing can modulate. Finally, the late modulation capabilities such as drawing how a page is read, or how a frequency distribution curve unfolds, can amount to plenty of non-linear output and surprising results. While I could go deeper into the details of UPIC, it falls outside the scope of my current discussion. For more information see Weibel, Brümmer, and Kanach (2020). What is important is that the UPIC recordings had a very strong sonic character. This made it extremely interesting to work with the system, but it also became somehow difficult for me to work with the recordings later on owing to their resilient nature. I never completed a piece using this material nor used it in other works. It felt like UPIC existed within its own exclusive sonic realm.
Image description: A blurred illustration of loosely connected nodes in a network, depicting a database.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620171#tool-3625731 to see the image.
Shifting Context
Menkman’s work emphasises how the context of viewing her older images can change owing to evolving software, despite the image files remaining static. This shifting context, she argues, significantly impacts the perception of her work, making the archive feel alive and continually evolving. Additionally, the impact of her original work led to various iterations and copies by others, further diversifying the archive. Her insights into the changing context around static image data somehow sparked my interest and curiosity towards the use of old material through an evolving context created by software that interprets it. When I came across her work I had just started to revise the UPIC recordings and was thinking of possible ways of how to do so. This kind of ‘looking back’ attitude was perhaps shared by many artists during the late-Covid period and Menkman’s work certainly spoke to me on a different level since I was involved with revisiting the past somehow. However, I did feel the need to rethink, rework and review the UPIC sounds, but through means that would allow me to change my perception of that material that I had come to realise was perhaps limiting my treatment of it.