I would like to start this conversation with a definition about the notion of composition: in your long experience, what is\u00a0compositionand what does this concept involve in your imagination of the sound\u00a0?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nI find it most useful to think about a composition as including all of the interlocking components that the audience can perceive (consciously or not) including, but not limited to music, sound design, text (spoken or subtitled), lighting, scenography, and any actions or movements. In practice, I often use musically terms to discuss with the other designers and artists on a project about, for example, \u00ab\u00a0the moment where the lights play their drum solo in this section\u00a0\u00bb, or \u00ab\u00a0this coda from the scenography is taken up by the sound design here\u00a0\u00bb. Of course in the contemporary situation there is often a clear symbiosis between video and audio, but I often find it necessary to think also about elements such as the emotional state of a character, or the way that the scenography and lighting are working together, or the presence of a prop on stage – as clear lines of musical notation to be worked into the arrangement. Not as lines, which should be illustrated, embellish upon or demonstrated, but as legitimate musical elements in and of themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this way, the music does not become a soundtrack, and the action does not follow the music to become like a music video; rather, the whole of the piece functions with an internal harmony and elegance, as one single living body comprised of different organs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This kind of unity can give a greater impact than having multiple streams synchronized but working independently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this moment on the electronic scene, according to me, there are two tendencies: an\u00a0internal organic line\u00a0in which the materials are organized in order to outline a narrative fabric; on the other hand, an\u00a0external organic line\u00a0in which the materials operate towards abstraction. Nevertheless, the two layers above mentioned (the sound and the visual) are not opposed to each other, but they’re both inscribed in a system of shades. Could you speak about this tension on narrative\/abstractive dimension in your work\u00a0?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough I will often use a very specific narrative to guide my process, I try to obscure recognizable or identifying details from the listener’s perception. Often people give contradicting accounts of their interpretations, and any two people can have completely different impressions. That’s fine. When I work with a narrative, I am not interested in relating a specific story. The events and characters can be plastic, like in our dreams. The logic underneath should be cohesive of course, and the lines should lead us somewhere which is astounding or surprising, preferably even inside ourselves. But there is no need for the lines to be reassuring or familiar. What is necessary is a taut structure and rigorous discipline in the research. This empowers the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This process tells of an important relationship, in your research, between art, science and technology. What does it mean for you, to relate the art and science\u00a0? At what level takes place in your work\u00a0?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThat blurry space where one ends and the other begins is a great source for inspiration for me. My studio doesn’t look very different than a science lab, and I’ve worked with many technology and software companies, scientists and researchers in their facilities to develop musical elements. At University, I took courses that enriched my understanding of composition in the departments of Fine Arts, Sociology, Anthropology, Mathematics and Physics; my final research project was actually split and shared between the departments of Philosophy and Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Art, science and technology. Each enriches, informs and directs the others in the same way that smell, taste and sight are all intertwined in one’s appreciation of a fine meal: they are simply different angles of approaching the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The organic dimension of a sound<\/h2>\n\n\n\nScott Gibbons,\u00a0Atlantic Ocean\u00a0<\/em>(in\u00a0Imagined Compositions for Water<\/em>) 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe tactile quality of a sound is an important characteristic of your work, like in\u00a0Field notes (1999)\u00a0or in\u00a0Imagined Compositions for Water (2004): a form of \u201cacoustic surgery\u201d. Could you talk about a physical (or organic) dimension of sound in your concept of composition?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nI like your suggestion about acoustic surgery. One of the first artists with whom I felt a strong affinity was Andreas Vesalius, who made anatomical drawings from cadavers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Going back to your earlier question, I notice that I accused Vesalius of being an artist. He was actually an anatomist and physician!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 1980’s I designed my first public performances as multi-point installations. Instead of having an array of speakers directing sound towards the audience, I would place very special sounds in specific speakers, which would be suspended or placed throughout the room, and the audience was encouraged to freely pass through the rooms under their own direction. There was not sound coming continuously through all of the speakers; there was a natural dynamic and rhythm inside each one. I still work in this way. In theatre this is obvious because we have speakers placed very specifically \u2013 frontally, inside objects on the stage, firing into the scene, even in the seating for the audience \u2013 and we play with the spatialization, sometimes giving a more cinematic presentation, sometimes in a more hyper-real manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now, it’s true, over time I find myself less and less trying to chisel away the extraneous material until I find the thing I’m searching for inside. Instead, I find myself diving in deeply and exploring from inside. It is a form of surgery, you’re absolutely correct. Rather than trying to bring something out, I make incisions and go inside. I like making field recordings. I like using hydrophones and contact microphones to amplify the inaudible. I like using ‘found’ formulas and sequences from nature to compose. I’m much more curious about these trajectories than I am about anything that a synthesizer or software could do, in part because I am delighted to play the role of spectator. I control the engineering and construction of the montage, but the source material exists independently of my intensions. I enter, explore, take notes, and depart. Then I try to define and encapsulate what I found so compelling about the experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\nScott Gibbons,\u00a0Field Notes<\/em>\u00a0(1999)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThis organic character of sound is used to\u00a0The Cryonic Chants (2006)\u00a0realized with\u00a0Chiara Guidi and Soc\u00ecetas Raffaello Sanzio. Could you speak about the sound process of this concert\u00a0?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Cryonic Chants<\/em> focused around texts, which were generated by the autonomous movements of a goat. (The Cryonic Chants<\/em> grew out of Tragedia Endogonedia<\/em>, which was an examination of Tragedy; the etymology of the word ‘Tragedy’ invokes the song of the sacrificial goat.) <\/p>\n\n\n\nA floor was covered with the alphabetical representation of several DNA sequences particular to goat-ness (of growing goat horns for example). That same goat was placed on that floor, and – as he roamed quite freely – the letters over which he stood or passed were recorded as a phonemic sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Tragedia Endogonidia<\/em>, Chiara & I had already created a large library of sound material, most of it created through manipulation of the voice & body (teeth, bones) interacting with electronics (modular synthesizers used as sound processors) and acoustics (passing sound through tubes, swinging speakers, using the natural reverbs of different spaces). The Cryonic Chants<\/em> was realized as a concert, so there was a certain amount of samples and prepared elements taken from this sound library. Then I also had recordings from the video documentation of the goat’s feet as he walked, and a few of his bleats.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA basic skeletal structure was synchronized with video footage of the goat on the floor; of that whole process. Then I played live samples – some composed and some improvised, and some from the video footage – and processed the singer’s voices while they sang the goat-generated texts. So nearly all of the sound was vocal, or at least bodily, but all of it was highly processed and manipulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n