Poly-Reading (2006)
For many years I have been researching possibilities of developing a form of musical presentation, which allows the audience to simultaneously experience the musical process as it is unfolded and explored by the musician. This led to a developmental collaboration with two colleagues (R. Darroll and M. Ishibashi), and resulted in a "visual language" for musical events. We refer to this "visual language" as ASN (active symbol notation), because it enables the visual configuration of the musical event, through the use of symbols (quasi-notation), which are manipulated by the musician using a mouse. ASN can be seen as a digital musical instrument, which enables the musician and the audience to visually understand the musical process and decision-making at the same time.
I have also used the ASN interface as a meta-instrument, which in turn uses MAX/MSP to manipulate pre-selected sound sources. In this case, all the sound material consists of sound-samples, which are available in a specific database. The sound-samples have been removed from their original context (as part of a larger composition) and recombined within a new context, constructed with ASN. However, these sound-samples are not just neutral materials, but their original contexts (references) constantly reappear within the new recombination. In this sense, many different musical contexts can be overlapped to create new forms, intersections and contradictions, as ASN creates a new musical matrix, which enables us to read the musical material in varying new ways.