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Global Hockets
' Supreme Particles
Supreme Particles
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' From Scratch
From Scratch
1 hour 1 minute 1 second Global Hockets was premiered in February 1998 at the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington, New Zealand, as a cooperation between From Scratch (Auckland/New Zealand) and Supreme Particles (Frankfurt/Germany).
In musical terms "hocketing" is the sharing of a rhythmic or melodic line or phrase between two or more players. The concept of hocketing was integrated into this new media/performance work on various levels:
– the structure of music and performance
– the combination and use of interactive and non-interactive visual elements.
The piece is divided into 16 chapters with a total duration of 1 hour 1 minute and 1 second:
a – entrance event
b – unison pulse accelerando
c – polyrhythmic module
d – interlocking modules
e – unison pulsed metal sounds
f – water bells
g – handbell hocket
h – accapella sample hocket
i – clap hocket
j – bass drum stations
k – virtual silence
l – zitherum drone texture and jilziras
m – improvisation
n – pipe stations
o – finale
p – end
The visual media cover a range from radiation of pure color, shaping time with pulsating patterns, abstract forms, liquid representations, symbols, light penetrating form to interactive modulation of a virtual world. The music is mostly highly structured, breaking into improvisation and back into organised hocketing.
The combination of analogue percussive instruments and digital visual representations is the central point for interlocking energetic rhythms with permutations of computer-generated images, creating layers of hybrid content and atmosphere."From Scratch has, in various incarnations, been refining its distinctive brand of highly syncopated rhythms created from a unique and constantly evolving set of percussive instruments for the better part of 20 years. Their deeply perplexing sonic arsenal includes the likes of hubcaps, bass pipe stations, tone trees, sliding tube drums, membranedrone and tuned tongue bells. The controversial open pipe effect of the mid-'80s has gradually metamorphosed into a more intense polyrhythmic soundscape produced by a wider and increasingly sophisticated variety of instruments. In the process, From Scratch has, in many ways, predisposed itself to an eventual collision with multimedia concepts. The integration of visual components is therefore little more than a logical extension of increasingly complex aural arrangements.
For Global Hockets, From Scratch has teamed up with Frankfurt-based computer artists Supreme Particles. "Some of it will be directly interactive," explains Michael Saup, referring to the aural and visual components of Global Hockets. "The score will be analysed and converted into parameters that will influence the visual elements, such as textures and the orientation of objects. Some visuals will be serving as atmospheric layers; some will be creating light patterns. I wouldn't really compare these effects to those of cinema. They are more a digitally based artistic contribution to the piece, including real-time 3D and 2D graphics and video. I decided to concentrate more on minimalist than spectacular visual representations." While the introduction of new elements has brought about an entirely different rehearsal process, Global Hockets can be readily viewed as a smooth transition from earlier From Scratch material. The genesis of the collaborative work occured in 1994 at the Soundwatch Multimedia Festival in Auckland, where Saup and Dadson first came into contact. The pair have been in constant communication with each other since that time and conducted a trial run at 1997's WOMAD festival at Auckland's Western Springs."
Michael Keall, Pavement magazine/New Zealand
Credits: From Scratch (Philip Dadson, Shane Currey, Adrian Croucher, Darryn Harkness),
Supreme Particles (Michael Saup, Anna Saup, Anne Niemetz, DJ Tricky Cris, Robert O' Kane)
Tech: Michael Hodgson (Digital Audio), Chris Gee (Audio), Grant Collie (Light)
Sponsors: New Zealand International Festival Of The Arts, Creative New Zealand, Silicon Graphics Auckland, Goethe Institut Wellington, New Zealand Rockshops/Akai, Campus Computers Auckland, Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt
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