Waterloo to Waterloo
The Musical Wheel
The Musixel Painting Project
The Musical Wheel - detail
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The Musical Painting
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The Musical Painting can be described as a large picture composed of wooden shapes that fit into one another. It produces its own soundtrack but with a distinctive novelty - it is the viewer who, by playing with the moveable parts of the painting, is in fact the conductor of the piece. This unique fusion between vision and sound is the fruit of the collaboration between Sean O'Hagan's High Llamas (U.K.) and the artist Jean Pierre Muller (B). The two artists work closely together since 2001, Sean O'Hagan creating original symphonies by mixing acoustic instruments (strings, brass,...), electronic sounds and urban noises, and Jean Pierre Muller using his established techniques of layered image assemblage, text, and fragments. Inside the paintings are the Hi Fi speakers and playback hardware that generate the music. By touching the painted panels, the audience interact with the composition the way the studio producer does. They can compose from the eight purposefully performed tracks a unique mix, as the playback progresses.
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(1
The first Musical Painting, Waterloo to Waterloo is simply storyboarding a journey from Waterloo in Belgium to Waterloo in London. The painting is composed of 78 painted and silk-screen-printed units, of various thicknesses, which fit closely into one another. Sixteen of them are interactive. It's up to the spectator/viewer to find them.
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The Musical Wheel is a trio of freestanding circular paintings which follow the evolving wheel to Detroit, the spiritual home of the motor industry and the everlasting home of Motown. The painting is alive with a musical composition, emanating from within its structure in multi-track form inviting the viewers to remix the work as they choose, guided by the lights flasing on the painting.
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The third piece, The Musixel Painting, is a Musical Bridge, a public work of art commissioned by the City Council of Ixelles to be installed in a Brussels' public space in the near future.
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How does it work? |
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Des hauts-parleurs haute définition sont logés dans l'oeuvre consituée de nombreaux panneaux de bois dont certains sont mobiles et interactifs:
 Waterloo to Waterloo used actual hardware to play the music, a DR16 Hard Disc recorder and a Waterloo to Waterloo used actual hardware to play the music, a DR16 Hard Disc recorder and a Kenton Midi Control Freak as the command module. as the command module.
The new Musical Paintings simply house a laptop computer running Max/MSP software, which stores, plays back and manipulates the music, programmed on Max/MSP software by Dominic Murcott, High Llamas member and Head of Composition at Trinity College in London. The programmer can command MAX to do virtually anything by selecting and building enabling modules and connecting them with virtual wires. For instance Max can command an individual track to mute or unmute, change its position in the stereo mix (pan), mutate the sound through filtering or add and subtract effects like reverb or delay. Max can also provide modules to command light interaction or even restricted motion.
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