Events and Continuums
Bret Battey · Focal Press eBooks · 2024
A core contrast in music of our time has been between music comprised of discrete note events vs. music of continuums, often in conjunction with the music of sounds. Traditional algorithmic-music techniques have tended to emphasise the former, while computer manipulation of found sound has tended to be associated with the latter. Similarly, in audiovisual composition, one can contrast note-to-visual-object approaches with more gestural and textural strategies. In this domain, too, we might contrast algorithmic approaches that render discrete objects versus video-processing techniques which more readily lend themselves to textural emphases. Estuaries 4, the last of the author’s Estuaries series of audiovisual compositions, caps the work of this series by finding fruitful intersections between algorithms and both discrete-event and continuum thinking. He presents the event/continuum distinction as a continuum itself and suggests some ways in which algorithmic approaches can apply across that continuum.