Symphonic
Morphemes is an exploration of speech (the speaking voice), song (the singing
voice), and letterforms (the visual voice). It investigates communication systems
such as these, breaking them down, and then recombining them in order to form
new vehicles of meaning and expression. -The exploration revolves around a poem
and a score specifically written for this piece that challenge different ways
of looking at speech, song and letterforms. Symphonic Morphemes is
an interactive installation which conducts participants through different emotional
stages that come from feeling overwhelmed, to silence, to being lost and then
to finally understanding how all these combinations come together to form meaning
out of seemingly disparate emotional, visual and auditory elements.
The piece is made for an audience, which is willing to contribute time, curiosity
and openness. It involves a process of learning, and will be completed by the
user’s interaction. Symphonic Morphemes aims for an intimate
experience, which reflects itself in the simple and sensual set up, consisting
out of an old wooden table, a chair, an empty diary with loose diary pages next
to it, a pair of head phones and a projection of a graphical music score onto
the wall in front of the table. As the participant puts the headphones on, an
aural composition of forest ambient sound, steps, breathing and singing voice
can be heard. When the loose diary pages are put into the empty diary, spoken
word fragments or sung melodies are audible and typographical elements, as well
as imagery become viewable through the projection.
The project is realized by using RFID technology for the hardware part combined
with Max/MSP/Jitter a Graphical programming environment as the software.