Output details

‘Trackpad’, a sound-generation, processing and spatialisation engine using the Max/MSP programming environment controlled from a laptop trackpad, was performed at the International Computer Music Conference in 2008, at Queen’s University, Belfast

This composition premiered at the 2008 International Computer Music Conference, ‘the preeminent annual gathering for computer music practitioners from around the world’. This piece was selected for performance by Nicolas Collins, editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Music Journal and a Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In his curatorial notes, Collins stated that among the multitude of pieces he had to review, the ones he selected were those that created a sense of a social space.

The performance took place in the Sonic Lab of the Sonic Arts Research Centre, a prestigious venue featuring a 48-channel sound diffusion system, custom-designed ‘for ground-breaking compositional and performance work within a purpose-built, variable acoustic space (SARC, QUB 2013).

The research focus of this piece was the development of a sound-generation, processing and spatialisation engine using the Max/MSP programming environment to be controlled solely from a laptop trackpad with its attendant restrictions in producing performance variables. The software created thus enabled the generation of a wide range of musical and sonic parameters on both microscopic and macroscopic structural levels, along with three-dimensional spatialisation simultaneously and in real-time. The piece thus builds sonic textures from sound gestures, which are in turn constructed from dynamic and spectral archetypes according to principles derived from Denis Smalley’s theory of Spectromorphology. As an acousmatic work it does not have a score.