Analog modular, Rolen Star, Schertler DYN-C P48, sheet metal.
October 21, 2017. Pawtucket, RI. 
Photo by Xiohan Li.

Live At Machines With Magnets 10.21.17 (Excerpt)

Stereo audio render from the generative system used in Precipice, a sound installation on display at the RISD Museum as part of the biennial RISD Faculty Exhibition and Forum. Comprised of weightless tones and bits of sonic dust, Precipice is a generative composition existing at the edge of perception. This piece utilizes six hyperdirectional speakers and custom software running on a single-board computer to create a highly spatial experience of sound that is nearly as absent as it is present.

Precipice (2018)

Stereo mixdown from quadraphonic performance of Dissolution (2013) at Issue Project Room as part of Harvestworks’ Performance Now! series.

Dissolution is a site-responsive improvisation that utilizes Cetilia’s performance platform Fraktur (2001 – present) to explore the physicality of sound and the behavior of nonlinear feedback loops. Beginning with electrical energy as a raw material, and taking into account the conditions of the site in which the work is presented, Cetilia sets into motion evolving and unpredictable processes, and examines the ways in which they unfold. His role in this operation is that of an observer and a regulator, guiding the trajectory of a given performance with an acute attention placed upon changes within the system and cues from the external world.

The current iteration of Fraktur is a hybrid analog / digital performance system consisting of custom software written using the SuperCollider audio synthesis / algorithmic composition platform, live-patched analog modular synthesis, and a variety of hardware controllers. Fraktur is wide-ranging in its scope and abilities, featuring signal generation and manipulation using analog modular synthesis techniques, live sampling, audio manipulation, and signal generation using digital oscillators, gesture recording and playback for parameters throughout the entire Fraktur ecology, and creation of data sequences that may be utilized by digital synthesis algorithms or output as voltages to an analog modular synthesizer.

Dissolution (Live At Issue Project Room)

Chiasma is a newly commissioned composition for Gendér Wayang and electronics, that was premiered as part of a day-long Experimental Gamelan festival at the Epsilon Spires Sanctuary in Brattleboro, VT on September 28, 2019 by Zach Hazen and Zach Hejny (Gendér Wayang), and Mark Cetilia (electronics).

In this piece, the Gendér Wayang part may be performed by one or two players, and is written using Titilaras Nding-Ndong notation, in the order of O E U A I o e u a i, where capital letters denote the lower five notes of the instrument. The electronics part for the piece utilizes the SuperCollider 3 audio synthesis / algorithmic composition platform; for the premiere performance, timbral manipulation was applied using an analog modular synthesizer.

Chiasma

Stack / Shear is a multichannel sound work that combines improvised modular synthesis performance with voltage-controlled higher order ambisonic panning techniques and chance procedures that determine cutting, pasting, and layering of sonic elements in real time.

Modeled after architectural strategies put forth in Lewis, Tsurumaki and Lewis’ 2016 Manual of Section, Stack / Shear may take the form of a improvised performance, a fixed media work, or a generative composition to be presented in an installation context utilizing archival recordings of improvised performances.

Taking advantage of the flexibility of higher order ambisonic panning techniques using SuperCollider’s SC-HOA libraries, Stack / Shear can be realized for a variety of spatial audio formats ranging from two to thirty-six channels of sound, and exists as an architectural investigation into the physical presence of sound.

As the piece unfolds, sections are extracted from a constantly evolving historical record of the performance and re-presented using chance procedures that maintain the structural integrity of the composition. 

Stack / Shear begins as a solo improvisation, from which excerpts are slowly introduced as additional layers, with inter-cuts becoming more jagged, building in complexity to a dense and dramatically shifting soundscape and resolving with a single voice that emerges from the chaos and slowly dissipates into the ether.

The length of a performance of Stack / Shear is flexible, lasting from 20 – 40 minutes.

Presented here is a stereo, fixed-media realization of the piece with a duration of 18'43" to be premiered in 8.2 channel sound as part of the Diffusion Festival for Electronic Music at the Red Room in Baltimore, MD on November 9, 2019.

Stack / Shear

Live at Sonorium on March 16, 2019 at the Gallow’s Hill Theatre in Salem, MA as part of an evening organized by Andrea Pensado alongside Golden Shores, Charmaine Lee, and Serrated Slump.

Live At Sonorium

Mem1 – Live At Mocoxon Studios (May 8, 2020)

Mark Cetilia is a sound / media artist working at the nexus of analogue and digital technologies. Exploring the possibilities of generative systems in art, design, and sound creation, Cetilia’s work is an exercise in carefully controlled chaos. Over the past decade, he has worked to develop idiomatic performance systems utilizing custom hardware and software, manifesting in a rich tapestry of sound and image. Mark is a member of the electroacoustic ensemble Mem1, recipients of a 2008 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Project Grant Award and the experimental media art group Redux, recipients of a 2006 Creative Capital grant for their Callspace project. He received his MFA with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, and is currently pursuing his Ph.D in computer music and multimedia at Brown University. He has taught classes and workshops on programming, sound and video art at the Rhode Island School of Design, TELIC Arts Exchange (Los Angeles) and Spullenmannen (Amersfoort, NL). 

Cetilia’s work has been screened and installed at such galleries and festivals as SoundFjord (London), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Laptopia (Tel-Aviv), the Sol Koffler Gallery (Providence, RI), the 1912 Gallery (Emory, VA) and SoundWalk (Long Beach, CA). He has performed at venues such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral (NYC), Spectacle (Boston), Issue Project Room (NYC) and the Knitting Factory (Los Angeles). His solo sound works have been published by Iynges, Anarchymoon and Quiet Design. Throughout their career, his group Mem1 has collaborated with a variety of artists including the Penderecki String Quartet, Steve Roden, Jan Jelinek, Frank Bretschneider, and Stephen Vitiello. Age of Insects, a full-length album with Vitiello, is now available by Dragon's Eye Recordings. Together, Mem1 curates the experimental music series Ctrl+Alt+Repeat and the record label Estuary Ltd.

Mark Cetilia

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