8Voices

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This is a work I completed in 2005. It was initially conceived as a set of surrogate performers: a casting of myself as a statue choir to counter to the ephemeral nature of my own problematic history with the performance medium. The musical elements in the work are derivative of the phasing and durational tropes located in minimalist music composition: Reich, Lucier, Young, etc. The work was intended to function as a performed recording with a programmed live element that was incapable of perceiving any feedback from a viewing audience. I sought to capture and contain qualities unique to live performance and render them equivalent to sculpture in a manner that facilitated a slowing down of the experience of the spectator.
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Installation description: The heads are casts of my own and the voices are also my own. The 8 pitches are selected by dividing 2 octaves into 26 equal parts - letters of the alphabet - and then spelling out my first initial and last name in a mock-homage to Bach. Each pitch has a set duration growing incrementally in 4 at 60 beats per minute. Each head contains a speaker that plays 1 of 8 pitches feeding directly from a sound card connected to a computer and running through MAX Msp which serves to maintain, with reasonable accuracy, the durational relationship of each pitch. The duration differences enables the sung pitches to phase with each other such that the composition only loops every few hours.
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The work is intended to play for 24 hours for the duration of its installation.

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