The Fractal Lab is rooted in the idea of an illusion of “fractal spatial qualities” created by sound oscillations, which are created by decomposing and phase-shifting musical motifs. From simpler studies for piano and recording device with compositions by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and Klement Slavicky, a case study developed with the self-playing piano system CEUS by Bösendorfer. The study series was structured around six brief case studies. These investigated the concept of spatiality in its different facets and lead into a cycle of short pieces titled ‘six memos for a pianist and a self-playing piano’ after Italo Calvino’s unfinished lecture series ‘Six memos for the new Millenium’.
Here is some of the output produced in this Lab:
Six Memos @ Porgy & Bess
Symbiotic Spaces: dialogues between a pianist and a self-playing piano
Six memos for a pianist and a self-playing piano - an artistic investigation of spatial phenomena with the self-playing piano system CEUS by Bösendorfer
TesserAkt library
Article for "Handbook Music and Motion"
Video presentation „Six Memos for a pianist and a self-playing piano” @ MDW
Furthermore in order to pursue this artistic investigation, we also developed a library of MaxForLive devices (TesserAkt) that perform all sorts of operations in the midi realm. These modules can be stuck in any configuration and connect to one another using midi CC messages. This library is open source and freely available for other artist-researchers to use and expand on:
Lab participants
👤 Hanne Pilgrim
👤 Leonhard Horstmeyer
