Principles of Indeterminism (2003)

Ars Electronica 2003, Linz, focused on computer code and its role in our society and our art. "Principles of Indeterminism" was an evening of live music with realtime visuals, taking the work of Iannis Xenakis as a point of departure to include music ranging from orchestral pieces to electronic noise music.

I was given two pieces to work with, to be shown in the big hall of the Brucknerhaus. A 3-part projection was used, with a total size of 18x4 meters.

1. Marco Stroppa's "Traiettoria Deviata"

This is a sparse piano piece, with big silences and no discernible rhytm to latch on to. I abandoned my original plan to make a sound-responsive solution only two hours before the performance. Instead I chose to adapt one of my amoebaAbstracts for live use, running individual copies on separate computers.

Piano was played by classical pianist Maki Namekawa.

2. # Dominant

This piano piece was more forgiving, consisting of loose improvisation on simple themes. The mood was slow and melancholy, suiting itself to a sound-responsive solution programmed in VVVV. The excellent "boygrouping" feature of the software was used to render the projection on three PCs with a fourth PC controlling them over TCP/IP.

Piano was played by Rupert Huber of Tosca.

Copyright 2003, Marius Watz