Hyperbodies was written for robotic piano and takes its cues from the handling of temporal layers from Conlon Nancarrow’s multi-tempi, tempo proportion sound mass canons (Thomas, 2000). The work uses a short rhythmic sequence that loops on all 88 keys where each key has its own tempo playing back at different speeds. See tempo matrix in Figure 4. These proportional variations on the same sequence are examples of invariance. I listened back to all keys playing at once and then chose which notes to turn off to determine what the temporal construction would be. The process was akin to starting with a totality and removing parts until you reveal the artwork, like beginning with white noise and then deciding which spectra to take away, seen as a practice of subtractive synthesis (Einbond, 2013).

Figure 4. The multi-tempi chart and rhythmic sequence used in Hyperbodies.

In terms of mereology, the point-like key strikes may appear atomistic but each ‘point’ has deeper temporality of resonances, decays, and harmonicity, or even phonons at a quantum level of elementary vibrational motion. The piece converges and diverges in the number of stream formations from two and three streams (fission) and one stream (fusions). There are moments of bistability in the overload of focal points confusing the figure/ground distinctions, which can change depending on what the listener decides to focus on. There’s also bistability in determining how many streams there are. At times the sequence can be distinguished. Other times it is masked as multiple patterns occur simultaneously giving the impression of a swarm of pulsating textures in a suspended stasis. 

The precision of the machine means that the fast-swarming clusters sound uniform. The glissando lines break up the uniformity by being staggered in their formation with subtle pauses or glitches that sound unfinished or incomplete. The sequence in the low register creates muddiness masking the clarity of the rhythm becoming a rumbling pulsating tone. I was interested in how sheer speed, force, and complex temporal layering opens questions like what is gesture without the body? and what changes when the music transitions beyond the realm of human performability?

Godøy proposes that gestural imagery is ‘our mental capacity for imagining gestures without seeing them or carrying them out, meaning that we can recall, re-experience, or invent new gestures through our “inner eye” and inner sense of movement and effort’ (Godøy, 2003, p. 55). At times, it seems as if the performance ventures beyond the listener’s inner gestural imagery capacity with tempi ranges at 300 bpm. It gives the impression of a hyperactive virtuosity—as explained by Eric Drott in his article Conlon Nancarrow and the Technological Sublime (2004). This impression of the hyperactive virtuosity is linked to the theory (Karpinski, Kolb, Tetreault, & Borowski, 2018) of the ‘hyperbrain/hyperbody’. That an intelligent ‘hyperbrain’ is in constant need of stimulation, and neural activity, that the excitabilities can lead to a ‘hyperbody’ (Karpinski et al., 2018). The sounds of the piano can then be thought of as a multi-dimensional ‘hyper-real’ gestural-sonic sensorial experience. Lines are perceived as visual mechanical gestures of the moving robotic parts such as the glissando phrases. At fast speeds, the digitised line becomes moving swarms of rapidly occurring note clusters. It establishes plausible pianistic gestures but then transcends this into the hyper-real or something beyond our grasp to relate to as real performed experience. There is a superhuman frenzy that overloads the listener’s cognitive capacities (Drott, 2004, pp. 534-535).

Figure 5. A graph showing the overall form of Hyperbodies broken up into high and low streams with text describing sonic characteristics with moments of glissando.

References

Drott, Eric. “Conlon Nancarrow and the Technological Sublime”. American Music, 22(4), 2004, 533-563. https://doi.org/10.2307/3592992

Einbond, Aaron. “Subtractive Synthesis: noise and digital (un)creativity”. In: Noise In And As Music. University of Huddersfield Press, Huddersfield, 2013, 57-75.

Godøy, Rolf Inge. “Gestural imagery in the service of musical imagery”. In Gesture-Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction: 5th International Gesture Workshop, Genova, Italy, April 15-17, 2003, Selected Revised Papers 5: 55-62. 2004. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Karpinski, Ruth I. Kolb, Audrey M. Kinase Tetreault, Nicole A. Borowski, Thomas B. “High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities.” Intelligence, 66, 2018, 8-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.09.001

Thomas, Margaret E. “Nancarrow’s canons: Projections of temporal and formal structures.” Perspectives of New Music, 38(2), 2000, 106-133. https://doi.org/10.2307/833661