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Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States

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Moel Y Gaer, Bodfari

October 24, 2018

In collaboration with the University of Oxford Archeology Department.

Composer: Christopher Lock

Year of Composition: 2016
Instrumentation: Fixed Media, Video
Type of Electronics: Fixed

Number of Channels: 2
Duration: 4:47
Video Component: Fixed

Score ResourcesRecording

This piece was created in collaboration with the director of the University of Oxford School of Archaeology’s excavation project at Moel Y Gaer, Bodfari in the fall of 2016. Moel Y Gaer, Bodfari is an iron age hill fort located in northern wales. The project to explore, uncover, and document the landmark was started in 2011 by the School Of Archaeology at Oxford and is ongoing. The diagrams below show topographical maps of the excavation site and were provided by the school. The piece was conceived by converting these diagrams into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files and constructing them in a graphical music notation software called Iannix. Once reconstructed, I was able to allocate different nodes (blue dots) throughout the structure based on points of interest found in excavation. There are dozens of orange cursors that move along the lines of the map. Once they pass a node, a message is sent to Max/MSP which triggers a specific sound based on which node is struck.

The Piece is focused around the idea that one work of art can be directly influenced, and in some cases dictated, by another. In this case, a piece of music that is the product of modern and sophisticated musical technology is directly influenced and structured by a work of ancient architecture. The music attempts to capture this juxtaposition of the old and new and is meant to create an almost web-like cloud of texture that is constantly morphing and assuming new dramatic qualities as the cursors move through the map.

The piece has been presented at the WOCMAT International Computer Music Workshop and Conference (Taipei) hosted by the National Tsing Hua University and committee members John Chowning and Miller Puckette on December 8th and 9th. It was also featured at the Art and Science Days at Musinfo in Bourges France on June 19th, 2017. On March 19th, 2018 the piece will be installed in the multi channel WaveCave at California Institute of the Arts. In early iterations of this piece the audio has been strictly stereo.  However, once installed in the WaveCave, and for future presentations, the animated score will also inform the specialization of the audio. An audio event might travel through different points in space based on when and where a node is struck on the score.

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