Operating Manual (3rd ed.) was commissioned by Popebama aka Dennis Sullivan and Erin Rogers aka two of my absolute favorite humans and musicians.

I began composing Operating Manual (3rd ed.) in February of 2020 and did not complete it until May of 2021. During that time, I was thinking a lot about communication and isolation. The performers in this piece establish and experiment with sound and light as modes of communication. Their interactions sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. They experience synchronicity, but also lonely solitude. They are constantly listening, watching, and sending out beacons in hopes of contact, and in hopes of hope.

Operating Manual (3rd ed.) was commissioned by saxophone and percussion duo Popebama in early 2020. I wanted to dive deep into a “world-building” piece and apply my solo intermedia practices to a duo setting. The world-building approach took over completely and led me to construct new instruments for the duo and develop new scoring techniques for these instruments. Light and theater play as important a role as sound in this piece and I consider all of the elements to be very musical.

Operating Manual (3rd ed) is a technological reversal of my usual photosonic work, as the players manually perform the lightbulbs (with multi-switch power strips) in order to actuate photo-sensitive analog synthesizer circuits. The performers sometimes execute precise lightbulb sequences but also interpret more open-ended instructions. The score is a combination of traditional notation, graphic elements, and text-based instructions.

The light-based performance leads to dramatic shadows, phasing and polyrhythmic strobes, distorted physical gesture, and confusing architecture. In this piece, the performers sculpt sound by performing light.

Program Notes

Excerpt from Operating Manual (3rd ed.):

“When presented with abandoned technology, the user must reconfigure their relationship with the equipment in order to allow it to function and speak in its native mode. This process takes time and patience and a willingness to relinquish control. The technology will communicate more clearly once it is thoroughly understood on its own terms. Delays in communication between users are inevitable. Study the processes that drive inputs and outputs. Actuate transmissions. Open channels for reception. Allow for interventions from all actors. Do not assume a syntax. When engaged with in these ways, the equipment will operate as intended and broadcast its multiple modes of existence into multiple spaces.”

Operating Manual (3rd ed.) was developed by The Institute for Reconfigured Intervention and Spatial Modalities (TIRISM). The exact history of the manual is unclear. It seems to have been written by multiple authors over the span of multiple decades. Eventually, the document was abandoned and has been left permanently unfinished.

TIRISM itself seems to have disappeared from the field, most likely due to lack of funding and the alienating nature of its projects. TIRISM’s mission was always a bit unclear, shrouded in impenetrable language that frequently felt like intentional misdirection. Operating Manual (3rd ed.) is the perfect example of this lack of clarity. It contains unlabeled diagrams that could represent either new technologies or theoretical concepts. Its technical descriptions are interrupted by poetic musings. It explains incredibly specific maintenance procedures but provides no context for what is being maintained. In the end, both TIRISM and Operating Manual (3rd ed.) seem primarily concerned with communication within what the manual refers to as “a constellation of multiplicities”.