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xCoAx 2020 8th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X 8–10 July, Graz online

Mirror of the Whole of Nature and the Image of Art: Breaths between moons

Keywords: Live Electronics, Bass Flute, Audiovisual Performance, Kinnect, Spatialization, Particles.

The piece could evoke to the first great work of Robert Fludd (1574 - 1637): The metaphysical, physical, and technical history of the two worlds, namely the greater and the lesser (1617) [1]. This illustration connects the macrocosm of the Universe with the microcosm of the intellectual human activity, represented by the liberal arts education. Eluding esoteric, magical and apprehensive connotations from Fludd’s treatise, this integrated interpretation of the World and its human interpolation and inclusion could fit indeed in Breaths between moons (2019) by Nicholas Moroz.

The far-reaching space of Breaths between moons’ musical and extra-musical influences welcomes incommensurable dimensions, such as the elephantine power linked to the physics of black holes or the fragile architecture of an atom. First, this attitude concurs with the idea of wholeness as conceived by the extraordinary theoretical-physicist Albert Einstein. Along with that, a fascination towards nature and emotions mirrors a wide and profound aesthetic research made by the composer, which proves to emphasize the fragile and unforeseen condition of the human being. To sum things up, Breaths between moons’ music mirrors a holistic but frail sight of reality, where art and science could be the main keys to empower women and man to escape from a truly decomposed, blurry and uncertain context that blocks a bona fide experience of reality.

As the composers describes: ‘The piece focuses on the intimate and nuanced sounds of the bass flute, especially multiphonics, presented with live visuals by the performer itself. Using audio analysis and the Kinect device with Yuri Wilmering assistance, the flautist’s sound and movement are tracked throughout the piece and mapped to several electronic sounds and spatial motions so that sounds are transformed and spatialised as warped or pixelated reflections and stretched echoes, enveloping the flautist in waves of sound to suggest and ambient digital life form rendered in sound and space. The title evokes contrasting ideas of the intimate and the inhuman; human breath animated among an impalpably celestial and cyclical sense of time and space.’

World Premiere of Nicholas Moroz’s Breaths between moons (Amsterdam, 2019).
Capture of the video clip Particle Cosmic Cosmos used in the performance Breaths between moons (Amsterdam, 2019).

Media Assets

Audio recording:

Notes

  1. Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia.

References

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