“Impulse response” is a music production term describing the way electronic sound systems respond to a given impulse (e.g. a short burst of sound), creating a unique pattern of reverberations and reflections. The performers brought this principle to life by exhibiting the lines of code creating the dynamic visual exhibits on screen. The stage’s transparency welcomed the audience into the creative process, which I felt pushed the experience beyond a mere spectacle or consumption of entertainment.
Nathan Ho introduced a more abstract, aggressive sound to CCRMA’s stage. Working with a completely live sound setup, Ho strung together a hypermodern soundscape, using everything from what sounded like blaring alarms, to electronic beats, to arcade game jingles. His music was mirrored by Polina Powers’ visuals.
Coding commands for Powers’ images appeared on the screen: She used beautiful yet strange elements of nature to match Ho’s sound, such as ferns, feathers and roots. The artist utilized stable diffusion, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model that translates text to image. Powers live coded these grotesque images, multiplying them into grids according to Ho’s musical lead. The duo’s unpredictable sound and offbeat natural motifs heightened the intensity within the space." - Alexandra Blum for Stanford Daily
visual set snapshots
visual set snapshots
visual set snapshots
visual set snapshots
visual set snapshots
