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Pathways (2022)

[live screen-score for any sound making performer, with or without instrument]
duration: approx. 7’

There is an inherent naturalness in state of migrating: all living beings, throughout their life cycles, change or seek environments to better suit their needs for living. In different seasons or because of the change of the environment itself.
Birds move around the Earth, using specific areas as their summer, or their winter, or their breeding, or their mating environment. These paths are studied, made visible in so that they are preserved and made safe to make the passage, prolong the living.
While these migrations remain to be seen as natural, and have freedom of passage to do so in order to live, survive, raise their offspring, other migrations are considered illegal.
The Others, they are being shut, obscured, shun… the beings using them often left voiceless and their right to existence is attempted to be erased...


"Pathways" has a live score, and must be projected and be visible to the audience during the performance. The score mixes loading fixed elements and random selection between sets of parameters it has been told to pick from. In this piece I am using pre-recorded media, visual materials and live animation, dynamic media, and interactivity through live input of sound (using pitch and volume recognition, in radial spatialisation). In the performance, there is a constant interaction between the live musician/performer, pre-recorded but live randomised sounds, visualisations and animation.

There are four interacting layers in the piece.

The score has three layers itself, are all equally important. The top layer appears visually from the moment "BEGIN >>>" is clicked on. The sound and animation will begin only after clicking on "activate live input". This layer is derived from birds' migration paths, and is a visual and sonic representation of these migration routes. Algorithm is randomly picking out how many (minimum three) and which paths it will load. Each time the score is entered anew, or browser refreshed, there is a new random selection.

The middle layer is not directly obvious. It is a layer that acts like a masking veil for the bottom layer. It changes its opacity when in contact either with the top layer(animated bird paths) or the live input. It also contains sounds from specific areas of the Earth and its habitants, also reacting to interactions with the top layer or live input. The bottom, hidden layer, that is throughout the piece only hinted in glimpses (appearing in glimpses when the middle layer changes its opacity), is eventually revealed on the end of the piece. This layer is derived from human migration paths.

To determine the sets of migration paths, I used different sets of data from birds migration. For large birds who can carry gps tracking, I have collected sets of actual routs they have taken. For smaller birds, which are not being set with gps bracelets, I relied on the data collected from tracking “ringed” birds. The sound linked to these bird-paths comes from radio signals collected from areas they are flying over. The data for human migration paths comes from various humanitarian migration and immigration reports.

The fourth layer is the live sound input coming form the performer. Once live input is activated, and sound is being made by the performer, there is a visual representation (red dot-line) that appears on the screen. This line acts like a compas needle and changes its length and it is position influenced by the sound of the performer. The changes are made, and controlled, through the pitch and volume recognition built into the score. The recognition mapping of the score for volume is done so that playing softly will keep the needle close to the center and the louder the sound the loger the needle extends onto the canvas. Pitch is mapped in circular direction, going clockwise from lowest pitch to hight. With these parameters in place the performer should listen to what is happening sonically in already existing sound coming from the score and start to build their sonic material in conversation with it but also having in mind that this sound input has a visual effect. As the needle moves, it can interact and affect what is revealed from the hidden layer. Performer can therefore choose to make decisions simultaneously being influenced by the existing sound and the visual aspects, only by the existing sound, or their sonic material can also only be based on how it will appear visually on the screen. Through playing with these parameters the live performer enters into the conversation with the piece and also embeds themselves into the digital world (the browser, where the score/piece lives).


The first stage of the piece was developed during the fellowiship within DigiScore project, between July 18th and 29th 2022.

 

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⊶ Pathways - the score
⊶ Pathways - practice score [will be added soon]

 

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