NoisyMass is a live audiovisual performance work based on the game, Simon,
in which one remembers sequences of button presses based on colours/sound
being heard. NoisyMass incorporates game play, alongside increased risk and
unpredictability, into my live audiovisual performance work. Built in Max,
pd and processing, with the hardware constructed using arduino, the
fundamentals of the performance are a simple game of Simon; an increasingly
long series of coloured button-pushes to remember and repeat. However,
instead of a simple light and sound being seen/heard, the button pushes
reveal an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving audiovisual environment,
rendering the audiovisual performance unpredictable and the sequences
increasingly difficult to remember, allowing the machine itself to impose
agency over the final work. The result is an intriguing and unique
performance event, but there is of course a chance of failure as the
performance is fundamentally game-based… Should this happen, the system
can always be reset and the game replayed.
The recording above is taken from a Radio 3 Hear and Now broadcast on the Sonorities festival, Belfast, April 2018. This performance was the world premiere of the work, and the recording includes a short interview with both myself and Simon Waters, the Festival Director, on the nature of the work.