‘If We Shadows…’ and ‘A Bouquet for Regina Célia Pinto’

- Two works for the Internet.

 

Michael Szpakowski.

michael@somedancersandmusicians.com

 

 

 

 

Abstract

‘If We Shadows’ and ‘A Bouquet for Regina Célia Pinto’ are two small interactive/generative artworks, with sound, for the Internet.

1. ‘If We Shadows…’ (2001)

 http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/shadowsA.htm

‘If We Shadows…’ (2001) is a small interactive and generative audiovisual piece for the Internet.

The visuals are derived from DV footage shot during rehearsals/performance of the dance piece ‘linked verses’, commissioned and funded by Epping Forest Arts and which toured the West Essex of the UK area in Spring of 2003.

Users interact with the visuals by clicking on one of the dancing figures, calling in on each occasion one of three small piano loops.

This happens up to eight times in total during the course of the piece.

The point of entry of each new loop into the whole piece is determined solely by the user –there are literally millions of permutations of the eight lines of the piece with the additional complication that each musical entry is randomly chosen from either all three or, near the start, two, of the loops.

This gives rise to many very distinctive and richly complex phase patterns.

To me the result feels like a small but nonetheless authentic piece of music with a coherent structure and development.

Whether this is true is obviously for the listener/viewer to judge.

 

The visuals, although they have a utilitarian function in the construction of the piece’s sound world, are not simply an interface. They’re both a kind of homage to Eadweard Muybridge, film pioneer, and also a little ghost story.

2. ‘A Bouquet for Regina Célia Pinto’ (2003)

 

http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/bouquet/A_Bouquet_for_Regina_Celia_Pinto.html

The artist Regina Célia Pinto was kind enough to send me some beautiful recordings of music from her native Brazil.

I made this small piece as a thank you note.

It operates on principles not dissimilar to ‘If We Shadows…’ except here there is no user interaction - once triggered the piece simply unfolds (but differently, within defined limits, on every occasion).

The sound sources are three fragments played on the African instrument the mbira, or thumb piano.

Once again randomised phasing is employed as a musical structuring device, only this time the randomisation is achieved by embedding a number of copies of the same Shockwave movie within a single page of html.

The movies themselves contain random elements so although each has a limited palette of both sound and image the possibilities for permutation are pretty much endless.

Once again it seems to me that the various statistical possibilities almost invariably yield something that is musically coherent – I like to think of this as a Lutoslawskian rather than a Cagean use of chance although these are works clearly on a much more modest level!

The images are derived from DV footage of an ornamental cherry tree in my garden, taken on a bright day in the late spring.