FEATURED PROJECT

Ecotone II and Green Sound improvisations using S.M.I.L.E. (2008-2010)

The artist explores this through improvisations with a custom built interface exploring the boundaries of two "communities" of synthesized audio in a sonic “environment”. The interface, called S.M.I.L.E. or spherical media instrument for live environments, uses various sensors, tracks movement and produces light and sound in real-time. The outcome of the project is the convergence of audio-visual content with physical movement, as well as how an “intelligent” software environment can respond to the player’s activity in the production of a soundscape.

What is an ecotone?

What is green sound or green noise? What is the ecology of listening, of sonic experience in augmented or virtual improvised environments? How can sound bring awareness to social being and our relationship to other species and environments?

A good metaphor for thinking through the complex sonic ecology in a performance is an ecotone. An ecotone is a transition between two adjoining ecological communities, such as the transitional area between a forest and a prairie. This is the “ecological” transitional space or environment of sound, improviser and listener. This work creates an improvisational system to explore the boundaries between sound as object, information and environment, as well as performer and guest. The improvisations use sound to unfold for the listener, not only as predefined narrative or socio-cultural reaction, but also as the direct perception of the momentary interchange in the boundaries of the production in ecotones of sound, improviser and listener. The elaborate milieu of the sonic ecotone creates the potential for the listener to “move about” the complex listening environment during the perceptive act.