Erich Berger & Peter Votava

HEARTCHAMBERORCHESTRA

Abstract:
The “Heart Chamber Orchestra” – HCO – is an audiovisual performance that forms a structure where music literally “comes from the heart”. The sensor network consists of 12 individual sensors; each one is fitted onto the body of a musician. A computer receives the heartbeat data. Software analyses the data and generates via different algorithms the real-time musical score for the musicians, the electronic sounds and the computer graphic visualization While the musicians are playing, their heartbeats influence and change the composition and vice versa. The musicians and the electronic composition are linked via the hearts in a circular motion, a feedback structure. The emerging music evolves entirely during the performance.
The resulting composition is the expression of this process and of an organism forming itself from the circular interplay of the individual musicians and the machine. “HCO” takes the idea of
a traditional Symphony as a framework. Each of the movements and their forms will illuminate the ongoing process from different sides. Computer graphics generated from the “HCO” data establish a different sensual and narrative layer. The interplay of audio and video allows for a synaesthetic experience for the audience. The heartbeats of the musicians and their relation to each other become audible and visible. “HCO” is not a composition in the traditional sense. It draws its inspiration from music, art and science.

Biography:
TERMINALBEACH is a collaboration between PURE (Vienna/Berlin) and BERGER (Helsinki) that began in 2002. TERMINALBEACH is involved in the creating audiovisual entities. Linked performance environments intertwine abstract sonic narrations with a strong visual language of morphing surfaces to create a synaesthetic experience.