DIGITAL ATMOSPHERES

About Digital Atmospheres

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Digital Atmospheres is a conceptual work written for an ensemble of eight players equipped with vintage bulbs, evanescent conductor, fixed electronics and extended audience.

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Is divided in seven sections – or miniatures – that follow one another without interruption. Each section includes a subtitle extrapolated from a concept taken from the 3rd Industrial Revolution – to exception of the last one – what imbricates the musical materials to a conceptual creative impulse. That sections are;

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• i. The creation of ARPANET

• ii. Hyperlink

• iii. Planned obsolescence

• iv. The grid; interconnecting the World Wide Web

• v. Bits: scripting the source code

• vi. Virtual reality 

• vii. Digital natives / Digital slaves

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From a germinal point of view, Digital Atmospheres seeks a synthesis both in acoustic and digital materials. Employing a variety of sound-producing techniques such as field recordings, wall of sound, granulation, Shepard-Risset glissando or sampling; as well as virtual elements such as reverb, delay and distortion; that are re-introduced into a purely acoustic environment. As come happening in many of my previous works, the whole materials confluence from a primal musical gesture (developing itself in an entropic way); dealing this time a set of seven chords that are stratified and manipulated in both axes vertical and horizontal throughout the entire piece. In the last section – vii. digital natives / digital slaves – the electronic material is fused with that produced by the audience through using their smartphones like portable speakers; thus breaking the ‘fourth wall’ and turning the audience into an active element inside the sonic discourse.

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In memoriam of Richard Edgar Løvstrøm (aka Thomas Wilfred).

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AA

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Credits​

Composer, publisher & fixed electronic by Antón Alcalde.

MAXmsp patch developed by Pedro Vicente Caselles.