Mariela Cádiz, Kent Clelland, Denis Lelong: e’scapes

  • ©,

Artist(s):


Title:


    e'scapes

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2007

Category:


Artist Statement:


    e*scapes is a live audio/visual performance that reflects on an electronic vision of nature. Taking live cinema to a new level, the Cádiz/Clelland/Lelong trio performs live electronic music to live remixed footage and vice versa. Kent Clelland (aka LapCore) combines contemporary dance music structures and sounds with traditional electro-acoustic music techniques to create a recombinant computer music journey that is dynamic, ever-evolving, and potentially fragile. Mariela Cádiz and Denis Lelong use excerpts from nature documentaries and take the images out of their scientific and pedagogical context to process and remix them in a real-time, musically inspired flow. By deconstructing the common use of nature documentary footage and exploring its cinematic qualities, their live mixing thrives on mesmerizing, forceful, and unexpected relationships. Since both music and video are being performed live in conjunction with one another, it is no longer possible to tell if the music is inspiring the video or the video is inspiring the music. The result is a feedback-driven, multi-sensorial exploration into future-stained natural habitats.

Technical Information:


    The Cádiz/Clelland/Lelong trio considers their collaborational technique that of fusing together different ideas, perspectives, and audio/visual real-time techniques. They refer to this as a “confusion.” Confusing a large collection of both commercial and home-brew software, hardware controllers, intranet communication, and human-response feedback, the artists create audio/visual narratives by interpreting their source materials from the natural world around us. Clips from nature documentaries and scientific research video clips are processed, edited, and remixed live in direct response “to” as well as in direct response “from” the development of the musical composition, which is also being created live. The instruments played on stage are constructed from computers running software such as Max/MSP/Jitter, Reaktor, and Spektral Delay, and using protocols such as MIDI and OSC to
    coordinate computers and hardware controllers. In the trio’s live performances, control signals are shared between the musical workstation and the visual workstation, creating an artistic feedback level supplementary to the natural sensory-reflex feedback already being shared among the performers and ensuring that each performance is unique. The ability of the artists to communicate onstage and interpret through their respective instruments in order to generate real-time live cinema blurs the boundary between technology and the art of creating an entertaining performance on the fly.