Kristi A. Allik was born in Toronto. She has received degrees from the University of Southern California, Princeton University and the University of Toronto. She received numerous awards including Canada Council grants, Ontario Arts Council grants, a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, a Chalmers Foundation Award, the Federation of University Women Award and the Irving G. Mills Award. Currently, Allik is on Faculty at Queen's University School of Music where she teaches composition, computer music and music theory. Robert C. F. Mulder was born in Den Haag, Holland, in 1943. Essentially he considered himself an electronic artist at the tender age of 14 and since that time has followed a path of self-guided education and discovery. Currently he operates the LumiArt audio-visual laboratory.

'Electronic Purgatory' is a Digital Music-Theatre composition. Digital Music-Theatre is an emerging form of multi-disciplinary theatre in which traditional staging agents have been replaced with electro-acoustic instruments and projected visuals. All these constituents are generated and/or controlled 'live' by the performers (interactors) on the stage by means of an interactive multi-computer network. Consequently all elements, both visual and aural, are generated, realized and controlled in real-time without the use of video or audio tape. Structurally the work is divided in five closely meshed movements. The complexity of this event is visualized by the use of two (life-size) video screens (called Video Worlds), each of which is capable of showing a slightly different dynamical system.

The almost god-like gestures of the interactors shape the primordial lsoup-of-all-possibilities' into increasingly more intricate and perdurable aural and visual forms. However, in time the physical actions of the interactors become more self-directed and less environmentally oriented.

Technical Background

HW: 2 Amiga, Live Digitalizers; 1 Amiga or Mac Computer, Midi Network
SW: Mandala, Midi-Mice, Bars and Pipes, M, Sound Quest, Arexx, D-Paint III, Audio Master III, Soundscape