Improvisation with Heide Bertram for the exhibition of Ruth Devriendt, part of sessions on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 July 2021.
Included: modular synths, acoustic instruments, vocals, Nagra tape recorder and HP67 calculator.

Improvisation for exhibition of Ruth Devriendt, Ghent

Harbour Klang

The sound of a 440Hz pitch fork is picked up electronically and processed through my modular system, adding some radio interference. In this sense it touches to the work of Alvin Lucier who passed away  December 1st, 2021.

Tribute to Alvin Lucier

The biology versus technology parallel is a recurring element in Druez’s work. Where Huyghe’s work Partition du Silence, results in a score reflecting the sounds during the recording of Cage’s silence piece, it also produced notes as a result of the noise and digital artefacts of the medium (CD and player) itself. 

The report Intercranial Mapping of a Cortical Tinnitus System using Residual Inhibition, by William Sedley et al. that appeared in 2015 in CellPress, a research publishing platform, contained a graph with fMRI scan measurements of the evoked, induced and steady-state auditory responses of a subject with typical bilateral tonal tinnitus, comparable to that of Druez. The graph has been translated in analogy of Huyghe’s work, to produce a score, translated in two movements (one for each day).

Unlike the transcription of Huyghe’s Partition du Silence, done by a computer to extract notes from “silence”, Score of a Cortical Tinnitus is based on the graphical output of the computer system. A graphic framework and a set of rules made it possible for Heide Bertram to interpret the output and write the score. The minimal music arising as an aesthetic is marked by a non-narrative and non-representational conceptional work, approaching the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music, which lacks all other goals. 

Score transcription and original material in display cabinet. Music produced with Ableton Live, Moog Mother-32, Mutable Instruments Elements, Clouds, Ripples, Expert Sleepers Disting MkIV and MakeNoise 0-Coast modular synthesisers. Samples of study case tinnitus patients. Stereo, 4’40” and 5’20”. 2019.

Cortical Tinnitude 1th Movement (V10b)

Cortical Tinnitude 2nd Movement  (V10b)

Created as a counter reaction to our ever growing oversupply of experience and entertainment society. Everything must be more, well, this is less. And it’s not Contemporary classical ambient minimalism. It’s called Boredom, an essential state of being. Time to contemplate and make room in one’s head. The cover photo is from John Pilson (1968) who lives and works in New York called Unfinished Origami (1998-2000) taken at an office floor of the NY Twin Towers, not long before they vanished. I’ve created the piece with recorded samples, speech processing and synth simulations. It’s a pure modular generative work that goes on forever. Some of the stuff: MakeNoise, Buchla, Moog, Strymon and Mutable Instruments Elements… Have fun, not.

Boredom

B o r e d o m

Part of a lousy recording of live re-performance (too early on 1th of January) of concert BUS311223 (so much better but not recorded). TBC...

BUS010124C

X, the Star, a Euphonic Quest for the Origin of the Christmas Star — #BUS010124C

Introduction — Part 1

Introduction — Part 2

Demo of Live Performance of the Wasteland Collective. From the album Ethereal Threads. 
Read more: http://PhilippeDruez.be/Wastelands/R8DS

Acroparesthesia (binaural)

Doctoral researcher Sound Art University of Ghent / School of Arts

Philippe Druez