Breath Beneath Blog

By: . August 3, 2017. Posted under: ,

Follow progress on the PRISM Quartet’s groundbreaking “Discovery” project, Breath Beneath, as we investigate the intersection of music, interactive technology, and durational visual art with new works from Mark DeChiazza/Dan Trueman and Bill Morrison/Julia Wolfe/Ryan Holsopple.

To start things off, check out this walk-through of the Drexel University’s URBN Center Annex with Paul Jerue, Production Manager/Technical Director. URBN Annex will serve as a venue for the Philly program, co-presented by Drexel’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.

We welcome comments and feedback – let us know what you think!

The Philadelphia performance of Breath Beneath is co-presented by PRISM Quartet, Inc. and Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design on September 14th as part of the 2017 Fringe Festival.

The New York City performance of Breath Beneath is co-presented by PRISM Quartet, Inc. and 3-Legged Dog on September 15th.

Click here for complete info, and to learn about our generous funders.

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  • We’re happy to share an excerpt from the “Preamble” to Dan Trueman and Mark DeChiazza’s “Waveguide Model I.” Dan writes:

    “Waveguide Model I” is collective decision-making piece created for the PRISM Quartet, inspired by emergent phenomena like flocking and schooling as well as pieces like Riley’s “In C,” Andriessen’s “Workers Union,” many of Cornelius Cardew’s works (“The Great Learning”), and my own “Clapping Machine Music Variations” and “There Might Be Others,” all of which are participatory pieces in some fashion. The piece was composed with the broader aim that meaningful interaction and feedback between the players and other elements, visuals in particular, might be possible.

    A waveguide, as its name implies, is something that guides the movement of waves; a canal is one example, fibre optic cable is another. In music, strings are waveguides, as are tubes, which guide waves to oscillate at particular frequencies (the saxophone itself is a kind of complex waveguide!). Flocks and schools are also, in a way, examples of waveguides, where perturbations flow through the flock in specific, controlled ways. Most broadly, a waveguide is a set of constraints for how material or objects might move or flow, shaping but not fully determining what sorts of patterns might emerge.

    In this piece, the members of the ensemble are elements within a kind of compositional/musical
    waveguide, following a set of specific constraints, but making choices that shape the emergent music. As such, there is no conventional “score,” but rather a set of instructions (the “model”) and examples.

  • We have a new video from the first test of Mark and Dan’s computer-interactive video system for their new work, “Waveguide Modle 1”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IlU2PaNJ4o

    Here’s a video of Mark talking about the piece:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfi4u3IDtJA

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