colloquium
cum machina

The concept behind the experimental musical piece “colloquium cum machina” (Latin for “conversation with the machine”) is to examine human communication with non-human,non-living entities (AI's/machine algorithms). It is an experiment in machine-generated or composed musical material, how that influences a human composer, and how that interaction might be conceived as a dialogue between a human and a machine. And, in the words of Imogen Heap, to “draw the creatures out of the software”.

The piece was created by interaction with various
algorithms/mathematical models implemented in music softwares that produce pseudo-random musical material (pitches, timing, modulations, etc.). The process was to establish the parameters of an algorithm, let it run, see what it produced, tweak it, run it again... rinse, repeat until something creatively/musically interesting emerged.

I am the virus

This piece was composed to support a film project by Andrew Andreoli that explores how one might “reach beyond the veil” to communicate with someone who has passed. It fulfilled a long-time dream to compose-to-picture and to explore the communication power and emotional influence that music can bring to film. Andrew’s concept for the project, which involves choreography/dance by another collaborator, Kyungseo Min, is a piece in four parts, acts or movements and is loosely based on the progress of a virus from Stasis through Attachment, Replication and, finally, Release. The musical challenge was to compose and produce the music to which Kyungseo would dance. Having developed an interest in non-traditional musical scores, especially for experimental compositions in the spirit of 20th century contemporary music composer Iannis Xenakis, a series of graphical scores were developed to facilitate communication of musical ideas among the collaborators.

The Overthinker

The Overthinker, developed in collaboration with dancer/choreographer/creator, Kyungseo Min, explores inner dialogue/self-talk when overthinking social interactions. Creating the soundtrack was an opportunity to explore the pairing of dance/movement with experimental music/sound art. The creative concept for the Overthinker is a Zoom call between two friends and the internal dialogue of the protagonist prior to actually greeting their friend. The musical concept was to develop a distinct musical “voice” for each of the four members of the protagonist’s “inner congregation”: Anxiety, Morals, Criticism and Curiosity. The soundtrack also includes applying effects to the recorded voice-overs of the “inner congregation'', to convey the “in the head” nature of the conversation, as well as a complete sound effects/foley layer.