CLUSTER.X (2015)
Edmund Campion & Kurt Hentschläger for Ensemble InterContemporain, Paris
CLUSTER.X is a hybrid media performance designed to be performed by a group of virtual 3D animated bodies with the Ensemble InterContemporain. All protagonists, both real and unreal, together create the sound & music.
Cluster.X is a collaborative composition by Edmund Campion & Kurt Hentschläger based on the existing audiovisual work Cluster by Kurt Hentschläger. Emerging from a dialogue between the artists, an adapted, dramaturgically re-edited version of Cluster was the starting point and inspiration for Edmund Campion’s score for the Ensemble InterContemporain instrumentalists.
Cluster.X consists of three music/sound components:
> In the weightless choreography of Cluster.X, human figures appear mostly as an undifferentiated particle blob and sound acts as a pulsing, amorphous mass, together forming a cloud of ambiguous matter made of body parts, light and sonic drone. Cluster.X describes a meta-organism with a seemingly anti-individualistic character, yet still unmistakably human. Movement never ceases, with supply of driving energy limitless, supplied by invisible, controlling forces, in a prison-like void, without an escape.
Kurt Hentschlager
> The impeccable musicians of the Ensemble InterContemporain are installed and mated to the audiovisual artwork Cluster.X. We are intercrossing the arts, where all manner of hell might break loose. Out of all these pieces, there really is no puzzle to be solved, no better art form to be bred. There is only the hope of gaining a moment, one born from a deeply interwoven collaboration with artist Kurt Hentschläger. Yes, it is another mixed-media show! Yet each one, particularly this one, simultaneously dismisses and desires the moment, an immersion into the current day Mysterium (the space of the numen, the place of beauty).
Edmund Campion
Duration: ~25 minutes
Premiere: 9th of October 2015 at the La Cité de la musique – Philharmonie 2 in Paris (France), as part of the Turbulences numériques and Némo, Biennale internationale des arts numériques.
Edmund Campion & Kurt Hentschläger for Ensemble InterContemporain, Paris
CLUSTER.X is a hybrid media performance designed to be performed by a group of virtual 3D animated bodies with the Ensemble InterContemporain. All protagonists, both real and unreal, together create the sound & music.
Cluster.X is a collaborative composition by Edmund Campion & Kurt Hentschläger based on the existing audiovisual work Cluster by Kurt Hentschläger. Emerging from a dialogue between the artists, an adapted, dramaturgically re-edited version of Cluster was the starting point and inspiration for Edmund Campion’s score for the Ensemble InterContemporain instrumentalists.
Cluster.X consists of three music/sound components:
- Electronic Soundtrack of Cluster video, composed by Hentschläger.
- Ensemble Instrumental score, composed by Campion.
- Spatial Sound Diffusion, composed by both Hentschläger & Campion, with support from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies & Jeff Lubow.
> In the weightless choreography of Cluster.X, human figures appear mostly as an undifferentiated particle blob and sound acts as a pulsing, amorphous mass, together forming a cloud of ambiguous matter made of body parts, light and sonic drone. Cluster.X describes a meta-organism with a seemingly anti-individualistic character, yet still unmistakably human. Movement never ceases, with supply of driving energy limitless, supplied by invisible, controlling forces, in a prison-like void, without an escape.
Kurt Hentschlager
> The impeccable musicians of the Ensemble InterContemporain are installed and mated to the audiovisual artwork Cluster.X. We are intercrossing the arts, where all manner of hell might break loose. Out of all these pieces, there really is no puzzle to be solved, no better art form to be bred. There is only the hope of gaining a moment, one born from a deeply interwoven collaboration with artist Kurt Hentschläger. Yes, it is another mixed-media show! Yet each one, particularly this one, simultaneously dismisses and desires the moment, an immersion into the current day Mysterium (the space of the numen, the place of beauty).
Edmund Campion
Duration: ~25 minutes
Premiere: 9th of October 2015 at the La Cité de la musique – Philharmonie 2 in Paris (France), as part of the Turbulences numériques and Némo, Biennale internationale des arts numériques.
Production Credits:
- Kurt Hentschläger in collaboration with Edmund Campion
- Electronic surround soundtrack and video: Kurt Hentschläger
- Instrumental score and live processing: Edmund Campion
The performance of Cluster.X (in Paris / Berkeley / Chapel Hill) was made possible in part
with technical support from The Center for New Music and Audio Technologies
(CNMAT), University of California, Berkeley.
Thanks to Jeff Lubow (CNMAT) for spatial software and programming support
Production management: Epidemic (Richard Castelli assisted by Florence Berthaud,
Claire Dugot and Chara Skiadelli)
CLUSTER Production Kurt Hentschläger 2009-2015:
Original co-production: Arcadi, France
Additional production support and residency provided by EMPAC/ Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute and the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts
Ogre/Bullet & Max Msp Programming - Rob Ramirez
Ableton Live & Max for Live Programming - Ian Brill
3D Character Design - Chris Day
