mouthfeel (2018)

[WARNING: FLASHING LIGHTS]

mouthfeel is one of my photosonic compositions. It uses light as a means of interacting with sound, but also as a means of composing theater, choreographing physical gesture, and interacting with physical space. The lights reveal, hide, and distort the performer’s actions and project shadows onto the architecture of the space. The lighting patterns are the only strictly fixed part of the piece and are coded in the Max programming environment. As a result, mouthfeel’s compositional form is transmitted from information space into the physical realm, where it touches and interacts with the performer, instrument, and architecture.

The patterning of the lightbulbs is controlled by an assemblage comprising a Max patch, Arduino uno board, and a relay system I built myself (you can occasionally hear the relays clicking during the performance). The performer listens to an audio track for specific performance cues.

The instrument of mouthfeel is a megaphone and homemade photo-sensitive analog circuit (together they create the “photophone”), a mess of wires, photosensors, and LEDs that the performer uses as the sole source of amplification and synthesis. The circuit signal is directed through guitar effects pedals, granting the performer some control, but not complete control, over sound production. Because the synthesizer circuit is controlled by light, its presence in the performance is frequently left to the mercy of the pre-determined light patterns. The performer must move their body and the photophone in order to access more or less light and discover different states of sonic expressivity. The performer also produces vocal sounds that imitate the homemade, photo-sensitive synthesizer circuit affixed to the megaphone, blurring the distinction between human and technology.

mouthfeel is an interactive environment that reassesses the way we think, act, speak, and move in our surrounding worlds. The performer is forced to reckon with the physical world around them and to use only the (broken) tools of communication that are readily available. They reposition their body in order to find states of stability and instability, clarity and noise, but they are frequently at the mercy of other forces. mouthfeel challenges the way we use technology and privileges processes that must be re-practiced and re-discovered over those which grant immediate gratification.