A feedback installation that behaves as a self-regulating organism, continuously tracking what sounds and adapting to it. Feedback frequencies are filtered, boosted or suppressed based on principles of pitch, duration, balance and change. The result is a responsive system that is able to generate endless variations of pure feedback harmonies and melodies, without human intervention. Physical presence, external sound input (such as music) or changes in the room have a perceivable impact on the sound behaviour, but their relationship will remain indirect and non-instrumental.
The tuning of the installation combines ecological principles, algorithmic thinking and intuitive ear-work in situ. Versions can be tuned to different spaces, moods and situations and can be programmed to generate a variety of identities, from fast-changing textures to slow changing drones.
My primary motivation for this type of work is to create on the edge of sound art and music, combining time-based design with spatially determined sound interactions. The result is a sonic identity that behaves in more or less coherent ways, while simultaneously generating unpredictable and often surprising sound patterns.
Close Harmonies#1 – excerpt recording 13/01/19
Slow melodic and microtonal changes. The waterlike or percussive artefacts are the result of self-adapting pitch filters. I chose to happily accept them as they add an aspect of liveliness and bear witness to the activity that is happening in the software and on the spot.
