installation

page in progress… please see my old website mariplasma.com/projects for further documentation until I get it all set up here

“String TV” is an interactive audio-visual installation, shown at the LAB’s 25th Anniversary Exhibition July 31-August 29, 2009.

A long string “self-oscillates” or has no visible performer. The oscillations of a long string are visually manifested on a TV monitor. The monitor is hanging from above, shining down on the string.

The work is an autonomous feedback system: self-propogating, ever-changing, and highly responsive to space, people, and conditions around it. The audience/participant may move 2 magnets which are mounted to handles and slide below the string. When the magnet moves to different parts of the string, it shifts the tone of the entire system, causing fluctuations, pulsations, and overtones in the audio and visual elements simultaneously.

Harmonic vibrations of the string are acoustically generated, that is, the vibrations come directly from the string and body of the instrument with no amplification. This work is very touchable– participants also touch and press on the body of the instrument, where they can feel the vibrations and alter the audible overtones as in performance.
Instrument fabrication & carpentry by Max Allstadt.

:::Watch Videos Here::: Demonstration & Performance

Two Violins and a Theatre: a Triptych of Resonances takes place in a black box studio theatre.

The set is dark, except for two violins on white pedestals placed symmetrically about the center of the stage with spotlights on them, and a screen illuminated by reflections of water surfaces.

One of these violins is “self-oscillating” or has no visible performer. A violinist, dressed in white and lying down on the pedestal, performs the other violin. The layout of the set creates an opposition between “self-oscillating violin” object and the human violinist-performer.

The Self-Oscillating Violin (2005)

A second-hand violin is transformed into a self-oscillating system by the use of electromagnetism and a computer. Motion detectors excite long tones of oscillation. The audio vibrations of each string are transduced into surface waves of a thin layer of water on a concave mirror. The shadows of waves reflect onto the ceiling by a suspended blue flashlight.

Vibrational Matrix Series (2004-5)

A series of performance/installations utilizing vibrations in water, speakers, live Max/MSP/Jitter processing or microelectronics, feedback.