algo_altar
played by Catchpenny ensemble
16 September 2021, Orgelpark, Amsterdam
The organ part is written as SuperCollider code. It is interactive with the musician’s input, so including a set algorithmic ‘script’ which stretches and flexes in real time. The Orgelpark’s hyper organ (Sinua system) translated my code into physical manipulation of the pipes and registers.
Program notes: Algorithmic ritual, techno-mysticism. The musicians interact with a computer, the computer creates processed sounds based on the interaction, and sends commands to a pipe organ, which sounds become a new sonic environment for the performing musicians. Algorithmic composition stretches and diminishes, sound iterates, and both musicians and audience dwell in an ever-fluctuating musical architecture.
I wanted to explore the relationship between humans, technology (digital machine or centuries old, pipes-and-stops beast), script (musical score or lines of code), and space – regarding all as various nodes in a complex musical network, as different organisms in a shared acoustic ecology. Even though the theme of this work is not a “personal” one – not based on any personal story or experience – I hope the listener can still identify themselves in the inescapable human-machine ritual.
