~Proceedings ICMI0SMC12014 14-20 September 2014, Athens, Greece
Tranlaton s Tehniue:Collaboratively Creating an Electro-Acoustic
-tasltona Tcniu.Composition for Saxophone and Live Video Projection
Christopher ette, Kellamd Thomas, Javier Villegas, Angus r e e Forbes
Creative Coding Lab, School of Information, Science, Technology & Arts, University of Arizona
chrisotPher jette@gmaii. comn, {keland, jvillega s,forbes}@emaiI ari-zona.ed
This paper describes the development of an electro-acoustic
composition, titled v-+t-+d, which positions the act of translation as the focal point of the creative process. The work
is a collaboration between a saxophonist, a composer, and
two multimedia artists. We begin with a saxophone improvisation which is translated into a composition featuring
solo saxophone and fixed electronics work. The performance of this sound composition is translated again with
live image processing, where the audio and visual content
serve as control signals. We locate translation as an effective tool for composition and describe work that has inspired this approach to our creation processes.
L. INTRODUCTION
v->t-+d is a work that assum'es that the bias of a transcriptionist will impart a distinctive perspective on the material
translated from one medium to another. In this work, a saxophone improvisation is the seed for a translation common
to spectralism, "instrumental synthesis" [1]. A new work is
composed using the various translations as the source material. This new work for saxophone and fixed electronics
is the source for live image processing. In the live performance the saxophonist and the processed images of the
perform-er are juxtaposed, presenting the audience with a
transcription of the visual experience. Each collaborator's
transcription across mediums is an opportunity to impart
an interpretation. In this paradigm, each phase of the process leaves a mark upon the final work. The spectral translation necessarily navigates from the acoustic domain to a
digital representation; and the image translation maps both
the live sound data and video stream as control signals for
the image processing. This paper will present an aesthetic
context in which the work is located, followed by works
that have inspired our position. The next component of
this paper will be a description of the processes involved
in creating the sound composition, including the compositional strategies and a discussion of improvisation in this
context. The last section will provide a description of the
live image processing.
Copyright: 2014 Christopher ette et al. This is
an open-access article distributed under the terms of the
cns, which permits unrestricted use. ditribuon, nd reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Audio
Recording
Spectral
Translation
Audio
Composition
Video'I
Processing loe n
'sdea projeccion Aurio performance
FINAL PERFORMANCE
F re 1. The stages of translation. This figures shows the
four stages that lead to the final performance.
2. MOTIVATION
The motivation for this work is the realization of a collaborative process where various artists contribute to a final
work. The function of Irainslation in this context varies
with each artist. This section will first describe the collaborative process and the artists involved, followed by an
indication of philosophical influences.
2.1 Collaboration
The team includes: Kelland Thomas, Christopher Jette,
Angus Forbes and Javier Villegas. Kelland Thomas performs the notated score and created the seed improvisation
material for the work. Christopher Jette translated the recording, creating the saxophone score and the fixed electronic sounds. Angus Forbes and Javier Villegas developed
a video processing technique [2] that used the audio as input for creating a visual interpretation of the piece. Javier
Villegas also performed. the video processing live, adjusting control parameters of the visuals during live performanC es of v--+t-+d.
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