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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.
frequencies (a)
Nicolas Bernier
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_frequencies (a)*_ is a sound performance combining the sound of mechanically triggered tuning forks with pure digital sound waves. The performer triggers sequences from the computer, activating solenoids that hit the tuning forks very precisely. Streams of light burst synchronously with the forks, creating a not quite minimal sound and light composition.
The starting point the composition of this work was the acoustic tuning fork, an object that I find fascinating for many reasons: 1) while it is obviously acoustic, the sound it produces is quite close to the sine tone, reminiscent the “primitive” early electronic music experiments 2) tuning forks have been used for tonal instrumental music for centuries and have been used as a scientific instruments, so I see them as a symbol of research 3) We could almost say the object is approaching extinction, ironically being replaced today by electronic tuners.
For me, the tuning fork is the perfect object to compose in a way that draws a line between the electronic and the acoustics, between the present and the past.
After a couple of years of improvisation with tuning forks, I wanted to compose a performance that would be more precise than when I manipulate them myself, so this is why I used a micro-controller so I could have a velocity and a precision that would not be possible with human control. As the inspiration comes from minimalism, I then built a customized light table reminiscent of some minimalist works. This synchronization helps to produce a retroaction between the sound and the visual.
Links: www.nicolasbernier.com/frequencies
The starting point the composition of this work was the acoustic tuning fork, an object that I find fascinating for many reasons: 1) while it is obviously acoustic, the sound it produces is quite close to the sine tone, reminiscent the “primitive” early electronic music experiments 2) tuning forks have been used for tonal instrumental music for centuries and have been used as a scientific instruments, so I see them as a symbol of research 3) We could almost say the object is approaching extinction, ironically being replaced today by electronic tuners.
For me, the tuning fork is the perfect object to compose in a way that draws a line between the electronic and the acoustics, between the present and the past.
After a couple of years of improvisation with tuning forks, I wanted to compose a performance that would be more precise than when I manipulate them myself, so this is why I used a micro-controller so I could have a velocity and a precision that would not be possible with human control. As the inspiration comes from minimalism, I then built a customized light table reminiscent of some minimalist works. This synchronization helps to produce a retroaction between the sound and the visual.
Links: www.nicolasbernier.com/frequencies
Nicolas Bernier: Audiovisual composition, concept, performance, programmation, technical design and some electronics
Olivier Lefebvre: Techical design
Laurent Loison: Fabrication
Olivier Lefebvre: Techical design
Laurent Loison: Fabrication
Nicolas Bernier (CA) creates sound performances, installations, musique concrète, live electronics, post-rock, noise improv an video art while also working with dance, theater, moving images and interdisciplinary contexts. In the midst of this eclecticism, his artistic concerns remain constant: the balance between the cerebral and the sensual and between organic sound sources and digital processing. The sound of Nicolas Bernier is somewhere between the old and the new. It is electronic music made from objects of the past: typewriters, old machines, tuning forks, soundscape memories and, yes, musical instruments. He is currently doing a PhD in sonic arts at the University of Huddersfield (UK) under the direction of Dr. Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Dr. Monty Adkins. He is a member of Perte de Signal, a media-arts research and development center based in Montreal.