Final Major Project - Concept thoughts

∞ Fluctus

I've been thinking of the concept for my final major project a lot the last few days. And how it will be perceived by the general audience. There are two essential pillars to my idea. The infinite and  fluctus which means wave.

The infinite is expressed through the near limitless combination of generative compositional states. A compositional state, is a concept that I'm testing. Its purpose is to describe a musical environment, which can be encapsulated within a few words. For example, a piece of music may sound busy and harmonically exciting. These characteristics describe the state in which the music is in. My idea is to create 24 of these compositional states. A state will be able to transition between  8 other states.  This form creates a near limitless amount of different combination of compositional states. Each state will also have an element of randomness to it, which means the amount of variation in the installation is infinite.

The next layer of the concept is waves. I was inspired by a Michael Pierce lecture that I've linked below. In the talk Pierce talks about Heraclitus' two many concepts, eternal flux and eternal  logos. Without going into much detail, things are constantly in flux, but there are governing by rules which is the logos. This is a central idea in my pieces, the music never repeats itself exactly, but the music is governed by a set of rules. 

On a less philosophical level, the wave aspect is also connect to the medium. Sound and light are the two elements that will change from state to state. In physics both sound and colour are waves.  

Through my thoughts I've been able to summaries the project as a :

Generative audio/visual installation with near limitless combination of compositional states.

I'm becoming aware that I need to start conceptualising the different compositional states, so I'll post some material on that in the near future.

written by Jack Cleary