• | momenta.
momenta. exists as an exercise in abstraction.
Arising from the forensic nature of Google Street View’s digital documentation, the composition uses found evidence of previous expressions of momentum as its starting point. Newton’s second law of motion, as expressed in ‘Principia Mathematica Philosophiæ Naturalis’ (1686), describes momentum as being a vector quantity resulting from mass x velocity. The force of a weighted body in motion is reflected in its momentum. And so, in returning to the abstraction, as shown above, the motorbike tire marks registered on the asphalt detail a complex story of multiple ‘momentums’, or momenta, caused by action of circular drifting.
At the centre of momenta, the abstraction emerges. The continuous friction between melting tire rubber and raw pavement permit sonic drones to materialise. Some louder, some quieter, yet all versions of the same fight between the physicality of the two distinct bodies. As these merge into one, creating an unbroken chain of sound, the abstraction’s perception of time is questioned. What were once individual acoustic identities now stand as a single sonic ring, suspended, with no beginning or end – we are inside a moment of tension.
The score resulting from this conceptual exercise was mixed with a field recording of the initial location – 51°39'00.4"N, 0°01'22.8"W – thus falsely delivering the abstraction back to its place of origin. In this last layering phase, the blending of the two files acts as final dimensional folding – a forced and uneasy dissonance between perceived reality and abstraction.
Arising from the forensic nature of Google Street View’s digital documentation, the composition uses found evidence of previous expressions of momentum as its starting point. Newton’s second law of motion, as expressed in ‘Principia Mathematica Philosophiæ Naturalis’ (1686), describes momentum as being a vector quantity resulting from mass x velocity. The force of a weighted body in motion is reflected in its momentum. And so, in returning to the abstraction, as shown above, the motorbike tire marks registered on the asphalt detail a complex story of multiple ‘momentums’, or momenta, caused by action of circular drifting.
At the centre of momenta, the abstraction emerges. The continuous friction between melting tire rubber and raw pavement permit sonic drones to materialise. Some louder, some quieter, yet all versions of the same fight between the physicality of the two distinct bodies. As these merge into one, creating an unbroken chain of sound, the abstraction’s perception of time is questioned. What were once individual acoustic identities now stand as a single sonic ring, suspended, with no beginning or end – we are inside a moment of tension.
The score resulting from this conceptual exercise was mixed with a field recording of the initial location – 51°39'00.4"N, 0°01'22.8"W – thus falsely delivering the abstraction back to its place of origin. In this last layering phase, the blending of the two files acts as final dimensional folding – a forced and uneasy dissonance between perceived reality and abstraction.
Images by Google; scan date: April 2017
Mastered by: Donato Panaccio