Introduction | Technology Overview | Interactive Audio | Interactive Video |
The
COLLIDE Project
for custom glove controller, interactive computer music and interactive
video.
Joseph
ROVAN, University of North Texas
(See video excerpts from
DVD filming session)
Introduction
COLLIDE explores the idea of interaction as a function of sometimes random,
sometimes controlled moments of impact. The piece shows that collision
always has its consequences, but those consequences are entirely variable,
producing results that are alternately violent, dreamlike, prosaic. COLLIDE
reexamines the boundaries between generative gestures—those that
give rise to process—and “containing” gestures that
keep processes under control. As such, the sonic and visual elements walk
a tightrope between homogeneity and chaos, bounded by a continual play
between constructive and destructive gesture.
I composed COLLIDE for its premiere at the NIME 2002 conference in Dublin,
Ireland. The yearly conference, based around "New Interfaces for
Musical Expression,” focuses on the use of gestural controllers
in interactive performance. For the new work I wanted to create a piece
imbued with kinetic energy. I also wanted to write a work that used my
glove controller to perform interactive video as well as interactive sound.
The concepts of kinetic energy—and collision—led me to a very
different set of decisions in COLLIDE than I had made in my earlier piece
for glove controller, "Continuities." (See The
Glove Project for background on the development of my glove controller.)
