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Holding Pattern, Illusive
The repetitive patterns resulting from the graph processes came initially about as a surprise but then became something to further explore. ‘Illusive’ consists of various repetitive paths, most prominently applied to additive waveforms forming focused pitch lines. The direction is kept throughout while the additive clusters increase and disruption occurs that further introduces new variations and subtle changes of direction.
There are also processed sonorities used, in particular, a spectral freezing process that stacks chords of the original through a slightly shifted frequency spectrum.
Audio description: Sound file of Illusive. The repetitive patterns resulting from the graph processes were initially surprising, but then became something to further explore. Illusive consists of various repetitive paths, most prominently applied to additive waveforms forming focused pitch lines. The direction is kept throughout while the additive clusters increase and disruption occurs that further introduces new variations and subtle changes of direction. There are also processed sonorities using, in particular, a spectral freezing process that stacks chords of the original through a slightly shifted frequency spectrum.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620192#tool-3622343 to listen to the audio.
Holding Pattern
My first musical attempts using relational approaches focused on a series of shorter pieces that would focus on a certain cluster of the input space. My intention originally was to arrive at a longer multi-channel composition. However, that did not take off and I eventually kept the shorter pieces that have since been iterated and refined further. The working title of the collection is Holding Pattern, it refers to a flight pattern used by aircraft when they are unable to land at an airport. This situation often occurs due to traffic irregularities, weather or other impacting delays. In a holding pattern, an aircraft flies a series of loops, executing regulated behaviour while waiting for clearance to land. It reflects the relationship I established with the different material snapshots that become situated, repetitive, and somehow surrounded by incertitude.
The musical ideas it brought about represent a simplification for me. Instead of using rather complex textures, the sounds on Holding Pattern focused more on pulsations, straight events and pitched synthetic sounds. It also consists of generative processes that favour dynamic behaviours, shared agency, and blurred causation. Of importance here are the sound qualities of these different situations and the tensions between the different processes that can be brought forward as well as the side effects caused by their encounter.
The work highlights the encounters of high-level algorithms with purely computer-synthesised sounds through predefined conditions, situations that allow one to transform the other. These situations bring forth various viewpoints, all of which are carefully designed to operate on and emerge through, the material itself as well as the proposed sonic events.
Image description: Two abstract diagrams depict a possible network configuration of Holding Pattern.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620192#tool-3620402 to see the image.
Spatial Dimensions
The working processes employed during the composition of Holding Pattern relate directly to the creation and transformation of its material as defined through SuperCollider code. The work consists of different predefined modules that represent the material of the composition. The starting point for many of them were spatial sound ideas that evolved around approaches of representing synthesis parameters over multiple loudspeakers. Instead of composing sound sources that are later distributed in space, the idea here was rather to arrange the source over multiple speakers from the beginning and to introduce different parameter behaviours to each of the spatial points. This has the effect of an ‘opening up’ of sound processes, an impression of a higher dimensionality or increased definition. The spatial movements that occur do not come so much from navigating the parameter changes, but rather as the result of an overall changing behaviour of a sound process that has been defined in a multichannel environment.
Holding Pattern, Qualm
Almost the entire material set used for Holding Pattern is generated on the fly. There are various synthesis processes behind those processes ranging from simple to complex. For Qualm, simple, 2-operator FM synthesis is used as the basis for iterative patterns and modulating vibrato sonorities.
Although this version seems still incomplete, the rough start and stop patterns combine somehow rather organically to produce a unique formation of harmonic snippets.
Audio description: Sound file of Qualm. Almost the entire material set used for Holding Pattern is generated on the fly. There are various synthesis processes behind those processes ranging from simple to complex. For Qualm, simple, 2-operator FM synthesis is used as the basis for iterative patterns and modulating vibrato sonorities. Although this version seems still incomplete, the rough start and stop patterns combine somehow rather organically to produce a unique formation of harmonic snippets.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620192#tool-3622348 to listen to the audio.
Relational Repetition
Using the different graph algorithms developed alongside the music, one can build up strategies for exploring the material in various ways. The graphs can be constructed while the music is playing and the selection can occur quite rapidly. Many of the initial experiments took advantage of this by iterating repeatedly and in short steps. This resulted in a strong focus on rhythmic material and their forward-flowing behaviour. The music is mostly relational, in the sense that any notion of ‘sections’ or ‘transitions’ is caused by the properties and details of the nodes. Additionally, all source processes are defined concerning other parts, resulting in a ‘material network’ or ‘sound configuration’ that can be activated in various ways. Such a relational approach means that sounds appear in time due to their relation to other sounds, emphasising further a causality that is based on the characteristics of its sound material.
This relational approach leads to sounds emerging in time due to their connections with other sounds. Holding Pattern delves deeper into different machine-listening processes, which are observers attached to any available sound process. These observers track specific attributes of the material and, based on their observations, trigger other textures or sound processes.
Given the composition’s multi-layered nature and the sound itself predominantly drives changes, the pieces unfold according to their internal logic. The iterative processes of Holding Pattern similarly resonate with Lucia D’Errico’s concept of ‘divergent performances’ (De Assis and D’Errico 2019), wherein performance is not a reiteration but a site of transformation. By engaging with algorithmic systems that respond to and reshape sound materials, Holding Pattern exemplifies a shift in artistic research towards processual practices within dynamic networks that inform discourses on the reactivation of archival materials.