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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Vexations
Yuko Mohri,
Soichiro Mihara
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The installation Vexations has been named after Eric Satie’s piece Vexations, composed in 1895. This piece has been called the origin of repetition music as well as a mysterious piano piece. Eric Satie also put forward “music of furniture”.
Originally Vexations would have been played by a human pianist. Repetition can now be played by the computer. Vexations also offers the possibility that loops can be influenced by parametes like the noise in the gallery space where it is exhibited. This bridges the two approaches of Eric Satie: Repetition and Music for Furniture (where the sound of the surrounding space plays a big role). Instead of humans creating repetition music like Eric Satie did, this piece uses a computer repetition system for the exhibition space.
The system has three specific functions—playing, recording and analyzing.
1. The playing function plays an original Vexations sequence the first time through the loud speakers. This is pre-recorded data played by a human pianist.
2. The recording function captures a sound file (WAV) from the microphone.
3. The analyzing function generates a MIDI file from its sound file (WAV).
4. The playing function plays the MIDI file through the loud speakers.
5. Back to Number 2; continue from steps 2 to 4. Repeat 840 times.
The system circulates a sequence of Vexations between digital and analog. This conversion process alters the original Vexations into a location-specific Vexations because the final piece of music is not always same, it’s strongly dependant on the location.
Originally Vexations would have been played by a human pianist. Repetition can now be played by the computer. Vexations also offers the possibility that loops can be influenced by parametes like the noise in the gallery space where it is exhibited. This bridges the two approaches of Eric Satie: Repetition and Music for Furniture (where the sound of the surrounding space plays a big role). Instead of humans creating repetition music like Eric Satie did, this piece uses a computer repetition system for the exhibition space.
The system has three specific functions—playing, recording and analyzing.
1. The playing function plays an original Vexations sequence the first time through the loud speakers. This is pre-recorded data played by a human pianist.
2. The recording function captures a sound file (WAV) from the microphone.
3. The analyzing function generates a MIDI file from its sound file (WAV).
4. The playing function plays the MIDI file through the loud speakers.
5. Back to Number 2; continue from steps 2 to 4. Repeat 840 times.
The system circulates a sequence of Vexations between digital and analog. This conversion process alters the original Vexations into a location-specific Vexations because the final piece of music is not always same, it’s strongly dependant on the location.
Yuko Mohri (JP), born in1980, was an undergraduate student at Tama Art University (2000–2004) and a graduate student at Tokyo National University of Arts and Music.
Soichiro Mihara (JP), born in 1980, was an undergraduate student at Tama Art University, Information Design Department (2000–2004) and a graduate student at the Institute of Advanced Media Art and Sciences (IAMAS).
Soichiro Mihara (JP), born in 1980, was an undergraduate student at Tama Art University, Information Design Department (2000–2004) and a graduate student at the Institute of Advanced Media Art and Sciences (IAMAS).