Output details

Adagio sans quatuor

These works, realised in 2010, are both 'performances' of the Adagio introduction to Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ quartet (KV 465). Both feature real-time three-dimensional physical-modelling synthesis, including movement. This work draws upon and contributes to several research areas: problems of re-creating non-linear behaviour in modal synthesis; live-generated scores; networked performance and game controllers; and kinetic sound installation-art.

Adagio sans quatuor is a kinetic installation premiered at the centquatre during Festival Agora 2010, with sound emanating from several sources: two instruments created by Paul Stapleton, and several metal plates, suspended and equipped with systems of excitation, including transducers and specially-modified speakers. All sound in the installation radiates from the instruments and plates, except for slight amplification of the two instruments mixed with live physical-modelling synthesis, diffused by pairs of speakers suspended near the two instruments. Different frequency bands from the combined Mozart recordings, time-stretched and transposed without time correction to a duration of about ten times the original, are transduced through various plates and instruments according to the non-linear properties of each. Two plates are set almost imperceptibly into motion through the use of motors, tuning the plates to the frequencies transduced through them. The physical-modelling synthesis simulates complementary bending of one suspended instrument. To avoid recalculating the modal data, this motion is simulated by a real-time interpolation between a hybridised model of the instrument bent at different angles, piloted in Max/MSP.

Adagio pour l'absence is a CO-ME-DI-A-funded network collaboration developed at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, featuring Rob King’s physically-modelled Tentacles for Adagio game environment, live-generated scores for instrumental ensembles in each networked site, and virtual installations of physically-modelled plates. All of these elements interact, while live sound from the musicians influences the video, and audience members are able to participate in the 'game' through an iPhone/Android application.