Re: "This thing should not exist!" or: Pain through Quadrophonics

[Chris Chovit <cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov>]

Andre wrote:

>Today I was talking to my guitar teacher, a fellow by the name of Miroslav
>Tadic, who some of you may be familiar with through his work on the MA and
>CMP labels, particularly in conjunction with David Torn.  Miroslav was
>telling me about a project he had done about fifteen years ago involving
>sending a one-note loop through a Buchla synthesizer which was panned
>through a quadrophonic speaker system.  He had intended to create a
>tranquil, peaceful environment where the listener could lie in the middle
>of the quadrophonic sound field and bliss out while the loop circled
>around him.
>
>What happened, however, was that Miroslav found himself getting *seasick*
>from the experience.  Rather than getting the sensation of sound
>travelling around his head, he found his quad loop generated the sensation
>of his own body moving around the looped sound, even as he was lying on
>the ground in the middle of the speaker array.  He described it as a very
>disturbing sensation, remarking, "I had to wind up detroying this piece.
>I decided that this was a thing that should not exist."

Andre, I am in the process of setting up a quadrophonic setup, as well.  I
had this setup last spring for several months -- then business travel
forced my to move, and break down my setup.  I finally have acquired a new
space, and should have this setup again within a few weeks.

Using this setup, I created some "sound spaces", which were very
psychologically stimulating, although I wouldn't use such a
negatively-connotated word as "seasick".  But there is something about the
spatial aspect to the music that interacts with me psychologically, that I
DON'T get from a standard stereo field.  This medium lends itself to the
"installation" style of performance, rather than the performer-audience
style, since the audience, ideally, would be within the quad field, as well
as the performer.

Collier -- you mentioned  something once about an octophonic setup...can
you give some details on that.  I would love to continue a thread on the
spatial aspect of looping - ie. using loops to create sound spaces.

- Chris

P.S.  Andre -- I would like to see your performance on Oct. 30, but
unfortunately will be out of town that week.  Will you be doing any other
performances in the LA area?


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Chris Chovit
cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov
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