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::: NYC TRANSFORMATION/ deCOMPOSITION Goodbye Sonic Youth (Tin Rain On) A Real-Time, Sound Continuum (for laptop and headphones) ::: (click on image)
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::: Weapons of Mass Banalization (Continuous Video Loop) :::
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::: Damian Catera DeComposition NYC (2003):::
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NYC TRANSFORMATION/ deCOMPOSITION Goodbye Sonic Youth (Tin Rain On)
A Real-Time, Sound Continuum (for laptop and headphones)
By Damian Catera (2003)
(Image 1, 2 and 3)
NYC TRANSFORMATION / deCOMPOSITION Goodbye Sonic Youth (Tin Rain On) is a reflection on the city’s rich sonic palette and its aesthetic undercurrents. For this piece, sounds recorded throughout the city, as well as the Sonic Youth piece Rain on Tin, are sampled and randomly transformed with algorithms that I wrote in the MAX/MSP programming environment. These sound manipulation algorithms reflect my interests in stochastic composition as well as relationships between randomness, order and chaos. This automated process yields a collage-like soundscape, which continuously evolves and re-creates itself in real- time.
This is the latest in a series of "transformation/ decomposition" pieces where environmental and musical sounds are broken down, combined and algorithmically altered. For HAVANA TRANSFORMATION (2001) street and other sounds recorded during a trip to Havana, Cuba were combined with the music of Son Tropical, a Cuban folk ensemble.
The decision to appropriate and alter Sonic Youth’s material was an easy one for me. From my vantage point, Sonic Youth has long been inextricably linked to the aural fabric of New York City. Several hallucinogen- drenched road trips from upstate New York to see them during the mid eighties had a profound effect on the formulation of my personal aesthetic. Sonic Youth’s unique dialectic of order and chaos has been very influential on my own.
DeComposition NYC (2003)
Performance for 3 radios and live algorithmic processing
(Image 5)
deCOMPOSITION NYC v.3 is an improvised, site specific electroacoustic performance for 3 radios, and live electronics. For this piece, live radio is sampled and, spatially/ algorithmically manipulated with performance software that I wrote in the MAX/ MSP programming environment. The results are a constantly changing soundscape where the sampled sounds are cut up , randomly rearranged and altered.
This is a music of the moment which is generated and experienced in real time. I do not bring any sounds with me, only processes. Space, time and location are integral elements to this piece.
deCOMPOSITION NYC v.3, the latest of my site specific pieces, represents a coming together of my interests in installation and improvisation.
My first work for live sampled sound was an installation entitled THE WALLS HAVE EARS which was presented at the ICMC '96 exhibit in Hong Kong. This piece, which I collaborated on with Chris Dobrian, was a six channel diffusion installation where sounds occuring in the space, were sampled and processed with random and probability based algorithms. The sampled sounds were also "moved" in geometrical and chaotic patterns among the six speakers. One program that I wrote "smeared" the phases of a sound's envelope from speaker to speaker. The continually evolving soundscape reflected the altered sum total of a random group of sounds which occurred in the space during the implementation. One year later, I presented GHOSTS OF THE UNDEAD, at the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum which applied many of the approaches developed during the creation of "Walls". For this piece, the sampled sounds, from performances occurring throughout the space, were moved from room to room.
During the years following these two installations, I concentrated almost exclusively , on live improvisational performances and recording. Most of the software that I designed for the installations was retrofitted as tools to improvise with. For this group of performances, I explored the concept of "machine improvisation" where my improvised guitar was sampled on-the -fly and randomly altered, yielding unpredictable results. This is when I began to fall in love with and embrace uncertainty as a creative practice. Gradually, I came to characterize these performances as "decompositions" where my compositional intent, expressed through my guitar playing, was being disrupted by my unpredictable sound altering programs. I started to view this as a process of attrition, where the sounds that I generated with the guitar were worn away. New sounds emerge, however, which in turn inspires newer sounds.
Aside from the obvious influence of the work and theories of Cage, there are other artists who have also influenced this group of pieces. Dan Graham's installation in the Pompidou PRESENT CONTINUOUS PASTS, where viewers are recorded and continually shown delayed images of themselves, reflects a conception of time and space that is nonlinear, yet recurrent. These principles are easily adapted to work with sound. My interest in probability and chaos goes back to my 1995 studies at Les Atelier UPIC, an institute founded by the late 20th century composer Iannis Xenakis. Xenakis was one of the first composers to recognize and use probabilistic patterns found within larger random number groups. Kaffe Matthews work with live sampling and electronics in her improvisational violin works has also been quite inspiring as has Hildegard Westerkamp's compositions with transformed environmental sounds.
WEAPONS OF MASS BANALIZATION (2002)
(Image 4)
In this piece, I explore the role of the mass media in the dumbing down of complex issues for an increasingly gullible American Public. Join American TV "journalist" Asheligh Banfield on a recent trip to Baghdad as she gleefully reinforces the otherness of the enemy while preparing the American public for the inevitable. Asheligh shows us that the most powerful weapon of all is ignorance.
more about artist at http://catera.net/
Sound by: Damian Catera
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