PlayingMusic

an installation based on Xenakis' musical games

Marco Liuni: mathsman (at) libero.it

Davide Morelli: info (at) davidemorelli.it

PlayingMusic is an installation reproducing the same process as the one used by I. Xenakis in "Duel" (1958): he creates a game for two conductors of two opposite orchestras. they can choose between six different moves, each move is associated to a different score.

In PlayingMusic orchestras are replaced by computers and each move activates a certain sound event.

The game is ruled by a matrix, which tells if a player's move is good or bad.

Game rules

By tossing a coin, or something alike, the players decide who will move first. The first player can choose between the following moves, just holding a hand above the corresponding IR sensor of his console:

1. left
2. front-left
3. front
4. front-right
5. right
6. no movement

The last move is activated after a certain time without movement. On a screen the 6x6 game matrix is displayed, containing colours which express the moves value.

If the first player chooses the n-th move, the n-th row is made active.

Every column of this row is associated with one of the possible second player answers: first column with first move, anb so on. Every celkl is coloured: green means good answer, red means bad, grey neutral.

The second player answers with one of the same six moves, this way choosing a single cell: he increases his or the opponent's score according to the colour of the cell.

His move also activates the corresponding matrix row; now the first player has to answer following the same procedure.

The game goes on this way till a score of 10 points is reached.

Music

This scheme can be used for several different music styles.

We had chosen six electronic works contemporary of "Duel":

• "Poeme electronique" by E. Varese is move 1
• "Fontana Mix" by J. Cage is move 2
• "Articulation" by G. Ligeti is move 3
• "Kontakte" by K.H.Stockhausen is move 4
• "Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)" by L. Berio is move 5
• "Concrete P.H." by I. Xenakis is move 6

...we also made a disco version with techno loops associated to each move.

Performances

• Concerto di Inaugurazione del corso di Musica Elettronica. music by L.Tarabella, F. De Sanctis, M. Liuni, D. Morelli. Collesalvetti (LI). 13.05.2006
• AVI festival 2006. conference website Venezia. 26.05.2006
• 24.10.2006 - Conservatorio “B. Marcello”, Venezia
• 25.10.2006 - CIM - Dist, Genova
• 07.12.2006 - Museo Pecci (Prato)

Videos

	Concert in Collesalvetti (13.05.06) "Official" version with comments (17.5 Mb)
	AVI festival (26.05.2006) "techno" version (10 Mb)