Splintering (1997), 19m51s

Stream it

commission: French State (Music Office), Ina-GRM

À mes parents

Wood: a rich and fascinating sound source, here recorded in a variety of indoor and outdoor environments, and transformed using digital signal processing techniques. This work is concerned with parallel and complementary sound images of wood undergoing various processes of splintering, both naturally occurring (splitting, fragmenting, being chopped and trodden underfoot) and virtual/artificial (particularly shuffling and granulation processing in the time domain). In addition, the splintering of sound images in space (left/right; close/distant) is a fundamental issue in this work, as it is in the composition and performance of much acousmatic music.

Wood: organic material used throughout history in all kinds of ways and now being ruthlessly exploited in a negative manner, wholesale clearing of large areas of rain forest leaving the planet unable to renew life-sustaining resources. The balance of the environment itself is, consequently, splintering.

Wood: the place of the imagination, where wicked things lurk and strange things happen — not only where wolves pose as grandmothers, but where a prince meets a young girl (whose origins we never learn) weeping by the water; where a hero slays a dragon and, by tasting its blood, is able to understand birdsong; where a woman searches for the lover she may have killed — or is it merely a manifestation of the ‘deep forest’ of one’s own subconscious?

When wood is attacked it splinters. Splinters are dangerous — they retaliate! We have been warned.

Performances

		Rien à voir (11) Wednesday, April 10, 2002 Rien pour rien
		Rien à voir (11) Saturday, April 13, 2002 Jonty Harrison: Up Close and Personal