Composers

Cera

Cera A

Italy
Integra Commission: Dueling Zombies
Duration: 11:09
Resources: Six Instruments and Electronics
Electronic Specification: Max/MSP
Integra Ensemble: Court-Circuit (France)
Integra Research Centre: NOTAM (Norway)

Cera Integra by IntegraLive

Programme Note

“It’s squatting against the wall, unable to lift itself into a standing position. Its eyes, however, have life in them: and hunger.” (Clive Barker, Hellraiser screenplay)

Three forces are at work in this project: a war between a few ‘popular music’ stylistic codes and some techniques used in the tradition of euro-centric composition; the experimentation with audio analysis technologies; and the idea of artificial stupidity. A machine is in interaction with six musicians, analyzing the sound they produce. The music created by the machine is a simplified and foolish paraphrase of what the microphones on stage are capturing. In a parallel way, the musical score (played by the six musicians) follows the same system of list interpolations that the machine is using to translate its listening into sounds. Following the absurd rules of a reciprocal imitation game, human and artificial are interconnected and separated at the same time. Like dead bodies trying to repeat behaviours of past lives, machine and musicians behave like conflicting zombies, badly drawn caricatures, deformed clones. Their eyes, however, have life in them: and hunger.

Biography

Andrea Cera studied composition in Padova, Italy, and electronic music at IRCAM, Paris. In 2002/2003 he presented Innig, a sound installation for the exhibition Roland Barthes at the Centre Pompidou. In 2004 he created NightRun at Le Fresnoy, an interactive installation based on the screams of the visitors, and wrote a piece for the Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band MIDIfreaks Corridor Catapulte. In 2005 he prepared for the French choreographer Hervé Robbe Mutating Score, a composition based on the capture of dancers’ voices and movements, and, for a second residence at Le Fresnoy, Reactive Ambient Music, an installation based on the real-time analysis of the soundscape.

NB

This piece was composed during the first phase of the Integra project and as such does not use the Integralive software.

Integra Composers

Integra commissioned eleven European composers to write works including an electronic element in the period 2005 – 2008.

In the next phase of our activities, Integra is now preparing to release details of five major new commissions, all of which have been awarded in 2010. Each composer will write a new work using the Integra:Live software for ensemble, live electronics and other media. These pieces will be premiered in September 2011, with second performances taking place before the end of November 2011. Further information will be displayed in the tabs above soon!