Fixed Media Works
"Away” (2024) explores two parallel streams of meaning. First, the idea of being present in different places is presented by relying on sound sources that are relate to my own experience in Northern Sweden (e.g., a characteristic non-lexical inward breath used to express agreement, soundscape/urban recordings) with recorded sources that point to my daily life in Canada. Secondly a continuum of ambient noise is developed by continuously juxtaposing, hybridizing and reconstructing human and computer-generated breathing sounds alongside material from electronic oscillators, synthesizer noise modules and outdoor recordings of heavy machinery. This creates a liminal space where bodily sounds inhabit machine processes, and builds on previous explorations of how living presence can be inferred in acousmatic music.
“Obsession” (2024): this is an acousmatic piece based on juxtaposition of actual and virtual guitar recordings. The piece historicizes the use of FM imitations and older physical models, and blends them with realizations of the instrument from AI-based timbre matching. Here, listening to the boundaries between real and virtual guitars is more than just a technical feature. It explores the idea of the guitar as an electroacoustic instrument, instrumental tropes, and the possibility of liveness as an aesthetic position in fixed media.
“Sight Unseen” (2017): an electroacoustic piece that uses a combination of computer-generated sounds (granular synthesis in particular), along with transformations two main recorded sources: my own voice and a typewriter. This piece was part of my doctoral thesis project at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. It was made along with some new software for granular synthesis using the SuperCollider and RTcmix programming languages.
Particle Studies - II - “Fernando” (2019): comes from a series of short pieces that serve two purposes, 1) to act as technical “studies” about granular synthesis techniques that I have explored in previous research - and 2) to reflect on how instrumentality informs style by referencing earlier classical music “études.” For Fernando, the source material (which is gradually revealed near the end of the piece) consists of myself playing a study by the 18th century composer Fernando Sor.
“Habitats” (2021): A series of five generative works, programmatically based on the idea of digital ecologies and a metaphor of idea of code as an ecosystem for data. Each section consists of a dedicated program written in the ChucK language. These are just excerpts from one iteration of the piece. Each program can run indefinitely, producing unique versions of the piece in which new relationships between the different sound-making objects in the code are formed.
“Przypadek” (2016): is an electroacoustic piece from 2016, based on the Krzysztof Kieslowski movie by the same name. It is strongly based on the intersection of acousmatic recordings of found objects and stochastic synthesis computer-generated particles as ways of working with sounds to form a fixed media work.
“Mercury Rising” (2021): is an electroacoustic piece about viewing the sounds of the 1960’s space race within an acousmatic context. In addition to the use of sourced recordings, electronic sounds of this time period are revisited with additional digital sampling and effects processing to consider their potential to be heard as retro-futuristic.
Interdisciplinary Work and Electroacoustic Improvisation
“Wired: Gosiwon” (2024): 3D animated VR film directed by Sojung Bahng, for which I created the music/sound design. Instead of using narration, the visuals work in tandem with ambient sounds. Much of what is heard was created using machine learning systems for electronic music that involve things like sound classification (or behaviours that stem from failure to classify) and hybridization of different instrument sounds. More info.
“{[Digital Flesh 1: Scar in the Data]}” (2022): is a set of multimedia art projects that combines live cinema and experimental sound with installations, and AR. It is part of an ongoing collaboration with multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Sojung Bahng. This project investigates how representations of our bodies and shared physical sensory information can be de/re-materialised through digital audio-visual media. We incorporate machine intelligence techniques such as computer vision into our live performance, in addition to approaching other digital art art forms such as AR and interactive installation. More info.
From a 2023 improvisation concert at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. Haerim Seok, piano; Michael Lukaszuk, electronics:
A recording of set from the Sonic Arts Concert Series (with guests Elka Bong) - Queen’s University - May 12, 2022.
All the moon long… (2015/2024)
All the moon long... is a structured improvisation for laptop ensemble that explores the idea of sleep as both a trope in earlier music composition and an assortment of bodily activities that can be referenced using gestural controllers for digital music. This piece is not just about sleep in relation to relaxation and dreaming but also the many ways that our minds and bodies are quite active while we are out. The performers navigate through different programmatic interpretations of sleep using both sampling and synthesis modules to converse with earlier musical works that use this theme. While sampling calls and obscures recordings that reflect the theme, the synthesis modules create electronic gestures that depict how our physical bodies react as we move through different sleep states (e.g., brain wave activity, muscle movements, etc.).
Recording with MLork (Milano Laptop Orchestra):
Earlier version, with CiCLOP (Cincinnati Composers Laptop Orchestra Project):