mb_ant_phaz

Duration: ca 3'21"
Instrumentation: Monoboard in Ambisonic Projection and Video Projection
Composed: 2024
Details: In the summer of 2021 my daughter and I spent our days riding bikes about the neighborhood visiting neighbors. On one of these sojourns, while she was playing with some dinosaurs and a neighbor, I began documenting the ant colony busily traversing a neighbors tree. As the ants concerned themselves with TRANSportation over CENtral pathways I reflected on Henry David Thoreau’s ants at Walden Pond having DENTAL decapitation battles. My, how times have changed. Summer 2021 was also a time when naps reliably occurred and I would use this time to make recordings. I would record an improvisation on the monoboard, a single string instrument with 2 pickups and which is processed by a max patch. The processing patch that I was focusing on at that point utilizes user controlled delay lines. The “phaz” element of the title refers to the fact that dynamic control is exercised on the phase component of 20 sinusoids, which in turn control the delay times. The ambisonic diffusion is a series of procedural wanderings in 2d space. Each audio recording is unique and is an exploration of a different aspect of the instrument. This particular take is part of a series exploring short percussive sounds, ambience of the system and the emergence of multiple contrapuntal layers of sound before abruptly dissolving into monophony.

Video from premier at Bing Concert Hall - "CCRMA 50th Aniversary Concerts"