Swinnen Peter. Les Nymphéas digitales.
Granular synthesis has been known for a long time, both in audio and video applications. In this project we want to investigate whether granular techniques, thinking in particles, swarms and waves instead of individual parameters, can help to activate even more senses when creating and playing immersive spaces —where sound and image evoke a total experience— and thus open the door for new immersive experiences for the audience. Using techniques from quantum physics and artificial intelligence, this research, in collaboration with experimental physicist Jan Eysermans (CERN) and neural network specialist Frederik De Bleser, aims not only to design a compositional model that allows for the creation of immersive spaces, but also to develop tools that will allow performing artists to interact with these spaces in the context of an artistic performance. Not only will these models and tools be tested and validated in workshops with students of the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, they will also be applied throughout the research in a number of performances in collaboration with ChampdAction and HERMESensemble under the umbrella title “Les Nymphéas digitales,” culminating in a large immersive installation with 3D visuals, sound and musicians in the course of autumn 2023.
Composition and Music Writing
The research group Composition and Music Writing is as diverse as its researchers: composers and creative musicians scrutinize their own musical language from within. Equally, they explore, in an artistic way, the musical language of their predecessors. Departing from their own artistic practice, they explore the elements that construct music, but of course do not do so in a vacuum. The research questions arise from their own practice, and touch on problems or challenges regarding performance practice. These can be very diverse: new technologies generate new possibilities and new musical forms, which can be examined and clarified or refined.
Collaborations of all kinds lead to new paths challenges for musical language, and new analytical models can generate new forms of significance and creation. What all of these researchers have in common is that they aim to enrich their technique within their own or another musical language and/or practice. On a microlevel, within their own sound world, or on a larger level, within dramaturgical structures or musical hybrid forms. Always Researching with great curiosity, but also with an artistic goal: the creation that enters into a dialogue with an audience.