Hypertetrahedron

Hypertetrahedron is a composition, commissioned by the LOGOS foundation for the opening of the new Tetrahedron concert hall on 18-1-1991. The ambition of the builder of the Tetrahedron to always explore the new and unknown and to give that a chance, I have integrated in this composition as a fourth dimension. For this I use a hypertetrahedron. We cannot imagine this, so we insinuate it with a hypertetrahedron. Just as a shadow caused by the sun is a 2-dimensional plane, and it suggests a 3D body that causes the shadow. In the same way, the 3D nature of this composition with image and sound will also suggest the higher dimension.

Pre-study

On my Archimedes computer I had made a computer programme beforehand, consisting of a large number of coincidence generators each of which controlled one sound parameter of my TX81Z synthesizer. The idea was to give this algorithm complete control over the synthesiser and then leave it to itself for hours. Meanwhile, everything had to be recorded in order to listen to the results afterwards. Then the next day I listened to the result which often sounded boring or dull, but I copied the interesting parts.

Harvesting sounds at night - Manna

A single fragment of 1 min 37 sec sounded surprisingly lively and contained great dynamics. It charmed me so much that I kept it as a mini-composition. Because it was thrown at me as a gift by chance, it was given the title "Manna" after the manna that, according to the Bible, fell from heaven as food for the Jews during their flight from Egypt. I have used sounds harvested in this way in the composition Hypertetrahedron.

I wanted to show the visual projection of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional computer screen. So I had to add an extra third dimension to the computer screen. For this I chose a time dimension. The computer screen is the plane through which a rotating spatial body (a tetrahedron) very slowly flies (see images). The addition of this time dimension also makes it possible for the image to run together with the music.

Perpendicular

In a tetrahedron intuition and reason are perpendicular to each other but they are always fully present. No contrasts or contradictions, but two cosmic forces that influence each other. This is shown in the illustration accompanying this page.

The fourth dimension and noise

Noise is everything and is nothing.

Noise can have different meanings. In sound science noise is the composition of infinite sinus tones with all possible frequencies and phases. Everything.

In communication, noise stands for a bad, or even impossible transmission. Noise is a disturbance. In the old days of the analogue era, you got noise on the television screen if there was no broadcast. The same thing happened on the radio. Noise at that time meant absence. Nothing.

In this stereophonic composition noise stands for a universe of possibilities, an unlimited space full of coincidences and ideas.

In that noise there are coincidental conglomerations, clusters. In the same way that spatial bodies in the universe arose from coincidental condensations of the matter present. I found these sound clusters in my nightly recordings of coincidence, or noise. In the course of the piece, the noise turns into one monotonous structure: the idea born out of intuition ...

laatste update: 2021.06.06