SYN[A]: CLAVIER À LUMIÈRES (2012)

CLAVIER À LUMIÈRES was a project undertaken with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in 2012. A performance event was held at MONA on 3-4 November 2010 – details and documentation below.

Clavier à lumières – keyboard with lights, invented by Russian synaesthetic composer Alexander Scriabin.

Syn[a] is a group of artist-technologists working between Hobart, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth. They collaborate online and have never been together in a room at the same time. In this work Syn[a] members Peter Morse and Rodney Berry join with musician Andrew Legg and medical researcher Chris Henderson for a sonic and visual performance inspired by Scriabin’s 1915 clavier à lumières colour organ instrument. Legg, too, has experienced synaesthesia, and as such creates correspondences between colour, sound and text. As he plays, data drawn from his brain and body via medical instruments is mixed with audio, video and musical data from his keyboard, and then transformed and projected as 3D shapes and colour. He uses the evolving images as a graphical score to guide his improvisation, thus closing the multi-sensory feedback loop that drives both the music and the images.

The project arose from work we did with the TSO/NBN/Australia Council, exploring strategies for high-definition interactive streaming, via an engagement with the TSO for Digital Projects:

Review in The Australian.