title: talandon
type: interactive music-light performance and composition for a custom designed-made digital musical instrument
year: September 2015
author/composer: Alexandros Kontogeorgakopoulos (concept, instrument design, interaction design, interaction and sound programming, composition), Olivia Kotsifa (digital fabrication)
funded by: ZKM | Center for Art and Media (artistic residency)
first performance: GLOBALE: Tangible Sound Festival, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, September 2015
Talandon, is a live composition for a custom designed electroacoustic musical instrument, the semantron and light. The music is developed around a basic rhythmic pattern radiated directly from the body of the instrument and from a set of physical models simulating various vibrating structures. The interplay between the rhythmic gestures [form] of the performer and the resonance of the physical and virtual bodies [colour] is enriched, transformed and amplified by the presence of the light component of the composition. Musical sounds and sculpted light create a pure and transcendent soundscape and landscape; silence and shadows express the inner fine values of the work. The composition seeks spirituality and interprets Kandinsky’s language of form and colour.
The novelty and the significance of the piece can be identified in the interaction and also in the interplay between the physical and the simulated sounds. Moreover the body of the instrument has been designed and developed using digital fabrication methods that reflect the rhythmical elements of the structure composition. Therefore the rhythmical patterns appear on the physical form, on the triggered light pulses and on the sonic component of the piece.
Unedited footage from the ZKM performance in ZKM in September 2015 during the GLOBALE: Tangible Sound Festival