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description
“ I tried to show how this kind of “gimlet” between the musical theory, thus a part of the music, and the theory of mathematics are rolled up one on the other.”
Iannis Xenakis, 1976.
Presentation
chdh is a live hybrid performance, offering a symbiosis between the sound and the image. Between minimalism and industrial, chdh creates a single, cold but organic universe.Thanks to the use of mathematical algorithms and physical models, chdh brings a new vision of the use of data-processing tools in musical creation. The use of audio-visual objects, having a sound component and a video component controlled by the same parameters allow an effective management of the relations between the two medias.
This project evokes a virtual world, made up with more or less autonomous abstract creatures. The aesthetics of the video and the sound is minimalist: sines, diracs and noises interact with cubes, spheres and other primitive in 3D on a black and white visual environment.
The role of chdh during live performances is to play with the movement of these objects, in order to make them live and react. Two musicians handle the instruments by using an abstracted layer, software representation of the audio-visual object. Each algorithm then creates data used for the video synthesis and for the sound synthesis, creating a strong cohesion during the performance.
Movement as a mean of expression
The bond between sound and animations is a ground of research and experimentation whereas artists explore the possibilities offered by the relations between these media. While exploiting the complexity and the precision of their relations, “Their combination produces something entirely specific and new, similar to a chord or an interval in music”
chdh thinks that the music does not have a meaning in immobility. Its only means of existence is with evolution, thanks to the creation of a temporality. As for the audio-visual: an inert matter does not create energy, however Its movements, its displacements or its deformations give him life, make it sensitive, communicating.
The structure of the movement is more important than the matter. The movements have an identity, in the same way a form or a sound can be recognized, a behaviour is understood and evokes a reality thanks to everyone kinaesthetic experiment.
Accordingly, work by physical modelling allows a soft and instinctive relation between the instrumentalist and virtual objects he controls. Each instrument has an energy and structural coherence which calls upon our perceptive experiments to project us in his reality.
Realisations
chdh current works offer a live performance. After the development of the objects, the project is concretized for events during which the two musicians insufflate life to these creatures. These audio-visual objects do not speak without intervention. The members of chdh play and express themselves on their input parameters to create a music.
The various instruments are used initially according to a solo/accompaniment structure, which allow the public to discover the intrinsic connections between images and the sound. Then, the musicians improvise a polyrythmy while exploiting visual and sound space granted to each instrument.
The chdh project is based on two laptop computers connected by an Ethernet connection on which musician control information flows. In order to allow representation of fast and complex movement, the images synthesis is fast and accurate. The software environment used is the Pure Data which is the principal source of inspiration and exploration.
All the software used and developments made by chdh have an open sources licence allowing the free use and distribution.
"Ondoiement" and "Replis" duo. | |
The “cylinder” instrument creates a moving harmony while “dragon” tears space. | |
Slow melodic drones by the "clock" instrument. | |