Music and Media Technologies Home - Trinity College Dublin

MMT Grad Show and Exhibition 2008

This year the students of the MPhil. in Music and Media Technologies will be presenting their final project work as a multimedia exhibition (Science Gallery and the Printing House Hall, Trinity College) and Graduate show concert (Broadstone studios).

Multimedia exhibition - 12pm – 8pm, Tuesday June 10th - Saturday June 14th, Science Gallery and Printing House Hall, Trinity College
Graduate Show - 8pm, Tuesday 17th JUNE 2008, Broadstone Studios Hedron Building. 36 - 40 Upper Dominic Street, Dublin 7, Tel: 01 830 1428

Directions
Exit Ilac centre onto Parnell St, go straight up Dominick St This show will present the music, audiovisual, and video composition work of the students. Details of presentations are presented below, by location.

Multimedia exhibition - this exhibition will present the following works:

SCIENCE GALLERY

Francis Hartnett - Apparition Veil
An Immersive Visual Music Installation. A visually and sonically immersive environment that sees landmark painted artworks from the 20th century translated into 3D forms, brought to life and given new meaning in an ever shifting panoramic landscape; cities move like engines, and forests breathe in unison with the rhythms of a grinding electro-industrial 7.1 surround soundtrack. Closer to the viewer on the gallery floor, figures appear, like ghosts, surveying the landscape behind them and peering out at the viewers before them, before disappearing back into the darkness again.
Sheila Rodgers - "What sound does a building make: Architectural acoustics"
This presentation is a study of Architectural acoustics with a concentration on the "live" room of a recording studio. It displays an investigation into the History, Science, Trends and Technologies that exist relating to room acoustics and also current information and methods which contribute to the development of an acoustic design for a particular room - in this case; a recording studio 'live' room which can accommodate up to a thirty five piece orchestra.

PRINTING HOUSE HALL

Rory St John - Nintendo Wiimote : Virtual control of Sound and Vision
This presentation uses realtime hand gestures to create, process and manipulate parallel audio and video. The interface decodes gestural data allowing control of certain parameters of the synthesizers. Different hand positions, movements and gestures will yield different and interesting results. Using an Infrared light source, attached to the user's fingers, a Nintendo Wiimote analyses the gestural information which is then recorded into a computer and transferred to both the Video and Audio systems. A projection of the video will be displayed on a large screen in front of the user, and the audible representation will be played on a stereo setup.

Conor Hinfey – SWARM: Real Time Surround Sound Visualization Performance Space
This presentation will take the form of a performance space that surrounds the audience in walls of sound and light. The design of the space and its operational system shall allow sounds to be moved around the space by the performer (or audience in demonstration setup) using physical controllers. The integrated visualization system shall give visual representation to the sounds and their movement through the space. The visualization system shall consist of live projections and lighting panels positioned around the control point.

Aisling Kinsella - Mechanisms and Simulations
This piece is an interactive multimedia work, which provides the user with a novel interface to gesturally control the sound elements and exercise a puppetry over robotic speech reproduction. The visual reproduction is a response to the sound control, which is in 5.1 Surround sound. The overall theme is one of organic/electronic machinations.

Graduate Show

Emma Brennan - For some time now I’ve been observing the world
An introspective journey of self discovery through digital media performance. The piece combines an actor, visuals and surround sound to tell a story. Based on Carl Jung’s model of the psyche, the personal and collective unconscious of the character are projected through two surround sound arrays, one encompassing the other. Through the visuals, music, sounds and poetry, the thoughts, feelings and emotions of the private character are made public.
Jane Cassidy - The Night After I Kicked It
‘The Night After I Kicked It’ is an audio visual piece that explores immersive visual music in a 10.1 surround sound setting. Initially inspired by minimalist Japanese art, the video influences the shape of the music and vice versa resulting in a tight synchronisation of rich harmonies, noise and ‘digital glitch' minimalism in a visual music setting.

Sean Collins – Partials and Particles
This is a work for strings, cymbal and electronics. It is influenced by the work of spectral composers such as Gerard Grisey and Tristan Murail, and also by the the pioneers of granular synthesis such as Curtis Roads and Barry Truax. The piece utilizes live sampling and the real-time implementation of spectral and granular processes using a Max/MSP patch developed by Seán Óg. The music is presented in a quad-speaker array.

Chris Flynn – Threshold: An Exploration of mythology as a system of representation for human experience, 3D Animation presented using multi-surface projection with electronic score.
Threshold is to serve as a means of investigating how myth relates to the universality of human experience and consequently how mythology can be translated into narrative form and, consequently, into visual and musical form. Threshold features 3D animation presented using multi-surface projection, accompanied by an electronic score, as a means of making connections with how mankind interprets and integrates mythological modes of expression into contemporary cultural expression. It uses an analysis of comparative mythology as a conceptual framework for creating a narrative structure that draws from the store of archetypal images and motifs provided by myth, which are then realized using the fluid aesthetic possibilities of digital animation. The visual elements are accompanied by a score which uses the acoustic sounds of cello, guitar and percussion, and augments them with digital manipulation and textures to create a score that relates the organic principles of collective human experience and filters them through contemporary tools, creating a connection with the manner in which mythology itself is constantly evolving, retaining the essence of its semiotic codes whilst incorporating specific contemporary sociological and cultural cues.
Adrian Hart – Scrub Systems
This work combines electronic processing of the violin with acoustic ensemble performance. The first electronic process uses a guitar overdrive pedal to amplify the natural difference tones which result from sounding two notes simultaneously on the violin. The harmonic relation between the two notes determines the perceived pitch of the resultant difference tone, which extends beneath the normal range of the instrument. This process is applied to both violins throughout the performance and determines the harmony presented by the ensemble throughout the second movement. The second electronic process is granulation synthesis applied to pre-recorded noise-sounds made on the violin. The granulation output is integrated with the output of the acoustic ensemble during performance. The work also seeks to integrate the numerous stylistic influences which shape the typical repertoire of the ensemble chosen for the performance of this piece, including music from eastern-Europe, Balkan music, Arabic music, and Jazz. These musical styles have influenced many aspects of the composition and its performance, including the use of harmony, rhythm, and the instrumental timbres presented.

Louise Harte – Bom Apego
Bom Apego, the title of the piece, is Portuguese for ‘good addiction’. As the name implies, the concept for this piece came from the connotations attached and associated to the concept of ‘addiction’. Mentioning the word addiction usually creates a negative response in people’s minds as more often then not they think of addictions like gambling, drinking, smoking and the use of illegal substances. Less obvious addictions, which may not spring to mind would be an addiction to sports, football for example, money, computer games, work, extreme sports such as parachute jumping or an addiction to love. However, all addictions can be either positive and / or negative, depending on the person, the situation, etc. This piece takes the listener through the floating ‘highs’ and confusing, lonely ‘lows’ that go hand in hand with addiction. It presents a composition and an examination of a combined work for choir and electronics. It attempts to push the boundaries of listener expectations within acoustic/vocal writing. It employs the exploration of extended techniques for human voice as well as the human body within a choral context in order to transplant electronic sounds, concepts and effects, more associated with electronic music, into acoustic writing. At the same time this work uses placement of the choir members around the audience to create live spatial effects normally produced using a surround sound speaker array.
Laura Kilty – Letum Tenebrae
The piece is written for 36 voices and electronic tape-part in 6.1 surround sound. These 36 voices are divided into six spaced choirs of six singers (two sopranos, two altos, tenor and bass). It is in three movements that run into each other without breaks. All of the electronics for the tape-part are derived from ‘found sounds’ and original recordings of electric guitar which were all then electronically manipulated from their original state to produce the required sounds for the piece. The text used is original and is written in Irish, English and Maori. It deals with death with the voices taking on different personalities at different times – sometimes being death and sometimes a person being taken by death. The title of the piece, Letum Tenebrae, relates to the abstract personifications in Roman Classical literature of death, and translates directly to ‘Death Shadows’. It was written with the idea of creating a piece where the two worlds of the acoustic and electronic come together in a completely integrated way, while exploiting their very different timbres, and combine to create a new sound world, within three-dimensional space.
Julien Lonchamps – Verso-Tempo
In the early days of cinema, going to a movie was like going to a show. As cinema was silent, often a pianist or a small ensemble was performing a composed or improvised score during the projection, creating or building-up the suspense. Verso-Tempo proposes to recapture the excitement of going to a real show in a modern environment. During the performance, an eight-piece ensemble (flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, vibraphone, percussion, violin and cello) performs an original score over a projected movie in a surround sound environment. The project aims to provide live cinema with a new way of engaging with audience, as the addition of a spatial dimension to the creation and build-up of suspense will provide a unique immersive experience for the audience. Verso-Tempo deals with time passing by and our perception of this time. How would one react in an environment where time has a life of its own? In this story, a character comes back home in the early morning, calm and enjoying the scenery. A sudden change of mood occurs as he then enters the dark hallway of his house. He is seen desperately searching for something, until he finds an old carriage clock that seems to mesmerise him. From this moment, time starts playing tricks on him, triggering surprise, confusion and panic as suspense builds up... Verso-Tempo is an audiovisual study of the creation and build-up of suspense in cinema using orchestral techniques.
Oona Mc Farland – Bone Structure
‘Bone Structure’ is a Spectral composition based on the analysis of saxophone and didgeridoo tones and the Spectral compositions of Gerard Grisey and James Tenney. The internal pitch structure is built on the harmonic series found to be present in the instrumental tones, while the overall dynamic of the piece uses the arch-type shape used by Tenney in ‘Saxony’. The duration of internal elements and the piece as a whole are inspired by how Grisey used the idea of the breathe process in ‘Partiels’. As a tribute to John Cage, the pace is ultimately decided by the breathing process of the performer, introducing an element of indeterminacy. The aim of ‘Bone Structure’ is to explore the perceptual ambiguity between timbre and harmony and psychoacoustic effects such as difference tones and ‘beating’ between tones. There is also a transformation of the relationship between spectral components, as one harmonic series is layered over another one. The performance is in surround sound, with the hope that the listener will be enveloped in the layers of sound as they evolve and interact over time and in space.

Shane Mc Kenna – Three Streams
Three streams explores the use of animated graphic notation to create a sound and visual piece, which invites a creative collaboration between the composer, performers and audience. The visual and musical material was generated through a short animated graphic score installation, where the participant's interpretations of different symbols were recorded, analysed and used to create the electronic backing track. The animated graphic notation used is a unique system of moving shapes and symbols that will be interpreted by three live instrumentalists, each one following a different section of the screen.
Keith Murphy – Cold Fusion
'Cold Fusion' is a composition for cello, violin, trombone, percussion and precomposed integrated 5.1 surround sound electronics.The piece emcompasses a progression from a slowly building textural soundscape through an evolving melodic section to a rhythmic finale.

Last updated: Dec 09 2009