ICMC/25/d2/1100 Concert n06/01 Skin and Siren

• Skin and Siren

  • My Notes

    • 13:44 Quite #Cool textures. Could listen again.
    • TODO check stuff out from Person/Robert Seaback

  • #Composer Person/Robert Seaback

    • 

      
      Robert Seaback is a composer and sound artist from the US currently based in Florida. His electronic works are sonic expressions of viscerality, the hyperreal, digital stasis, and continuums between—integrating voices, instruments, soundscapes, and synthetic sources through digital techniques. He has composed or performed in different mediums including spatial audio, mixed music for ensemble, electroacoustic improvisation, and sound installation. Robert has a PhD in composition from the University of Florida and degrees in music technology from Mills College (MA) and Northeastern University (BS). He recently completed the Artistic Research Fellowship at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, working with Natasha Barrett. His music has been presented at international events such as Ultima Festival, ICMC, NYCEMF, Sonorities, MA/IN, the ISCM World New Music Days, and many others. Robert has received awards from Música Viva Competition (First Prize, 2022), IEM & VDT 3D Audio Production Competition (Gold Award, 2021), Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition (Honorary Mention, 2019), ASCAP/SEAMUS (First Prize, 2011), University of Florida, and Mills College. Robert’s dissertation research on digital sound synthesis and posthumanism was published in the Cambridge University Press Journal Organised Sound in 2020. He was an Assistant Professor of Digital Sound Design at Dakota State University from 2019-20. He currently develops/instructs online courses in Music Production for Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design and teaches general music courses at Santa Fe College.
      

  • #Description

    • What layers of meaning remain when the transparency of a sound recording is intentionally stripped away? Skin and Siren poses a response to this question in its treatment of recordings from percussionist Ingar Zach and field recordings made in Oslo in the Spring of 2022. The work presents dreamlike passages alternating between the corporeal residue of performance (Zach) and a fractured city soundscape. Filtered and pitch-shifted resonances from the snare drum and timpani create a harmonic frame for much of the work in addition to resonances extracted from bells ringing at Oslo City Hall. Skin and Siren is about finding beauty in absolute chaos, and losing yourself in a moment by becoming present in the transcendental meditative sense. Rather than presenting sound sources is raw states, I found that my digital transformations highlighted the ephemera of the scenes, like the tactility of small impulses and emergence of tonal shades. Between periods of being swept away by such fragmented pictures, one encounters concentrated, powerful sonic totalities of high contrast—encapsulating the way that time implodes in moments of becoming present and expands into vast spaces of mind and body.