Our projects, performances and Limited Editions.

PHANTOM WORDS DEMO (2013)

A demonstration of the phantom words effect, which was discovered by psychologist and acoustician Diana Deutsch. This effect is featured in the Optophono edition Long for this World.

Audio by Christopher Haworth. Film by Chloé Griffin and Gwenaël Rattke, from Projections 2 (2010).

demo for Long for this World (2013)

A short demo of our interactive composition and sleep app Long for this World.

The Biber Project

We are currently working on an Optophono edition that will feature interactive versions of H.I.F. Biber's Rosary Sonatas (aka Mystery Sonatas), which date from the late 17th century. Listeners will be able to create their own accompaniment to the sonatas, which were originally scored for violin and harpsichord.

The great learning, Paragraph 7 (installation version) (2010)

Our installation version of 'Paragraph 7' from Cornelius Cardew's composition The Great Learning. The installation, which was featured in the 'Arrivals' exhibit at Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast in 2010, consisted of two videos projected on opposite walls. Each video showed a different performance of 'Paragraph 7' featuring the choir Bird On A Wire. Audiences could walk between the two videos in an otherwise pitch-black room, and therefore have the sense that they were moving between both choirs.

Demo of paragraph 7 (Interactive Version) (2014)

More recently we created a software version of Cardew's 'Paragraph 7'. For the software version each voice in the choir is represented by an individual square. Listeners can move individual voices around in the stereo field and can turn each voice on or off during any point in the performance, thus creating their own live mix of the work as they listen.

cards from Optophono Edition 1: The Great Learning (Paragraph 7).

Music for SLeeping & Waking Minds (2010-14)

An all-night composition for four sleeping performers whose brainwave activity is mapped onto an 8-channel audio composition and live visuals. You can read about this project in this article, and see programme notes here.

EDEN EDEN EDEN (2009)

Our first project for sleeping audiences. EDEN EDEN EDEN was conceived as an all-night composition and memory processing ritual. Audiences are invited to hear the composition as they sleep and awaken. Afterwards their memories coincide.

biomuse trio

Biomuse Trio (Ben Knapp, Eric Lyon, Gascia Ouzounian) is an ensemble that creates music from physiological signals. This video shows Ben Knapp in a rehearsal of Eric Lyon's composition Stem Cells at Virginia Tech in April 2012. Knapp is wearing the Biomuse, a collection of modular bio-signal sensors that he designed. For this composition the Biomuse is measuring facial EMG, EEG and eye motion, heart rate, and GSR (Galvanic Skin Response). During performance, members of the audience are also wired for GSR and heart rate, which are physiological indicators of emotion. The music evolves according to physiological and emotional trajectories, both composed and improvised.